A Season of Sorrows Unending -- the Cerberus Files : Separatist Races
by LogicalPremise
Summary: A collection of Cerberus documents providing insight into alien history, biology, cultures and military forces of the hanar, drell, and vorcha. Tied into my alternative universe fics (Of Sheep and Battlechicken) and quite dark. Sort of my take on Renegade Reinterpretations, except more like 'bloodthirsty lunatic reinterpretations with an axe.' M for profanity.
1. Opening Overview

**The Cerberus Files: Separatist Races**

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* * *

Sir,

First of all, I appreciate the efforts made in the past few months to reorganize some semblance of a research corpus. I understand the new limitations placed on us in terms of interacting with alien subjects – it would hardly do to awaken your war-golem and have her try to kill us all for acting in a manner she finds objectionable.

That being said, the fact remains we are still faced with a host of unpleasant questions with no good answers. My daughter, Tiffany, has recently graduated from Arcturus' premier Academy of Science, and I think that adding her to my somewhat limited staff would not only ease my mind as to her safety but provide us with a much needed technical expert in terms of some of what we run across.

As to your latest directive, I find myself – as usual – at somewhat of a loss to your sudden interest in the races that never have had formal contact with the Citadel. While the danger of the Hanar Ascendancy is well known, and I suppose their drell servants are equally worthy of a look, I'm not sure exactly what you think we'll discover of any use on the so-called vorcha 'culture'.

However, as always, I will carry out your orders. My preliminary findings will be presented first before any in-depth analysis.

Dr. Galen Minsta

 **Cerberus Thought of the Day:** _The human is as strange to the alien as they are to us – use their unfamiliarity as a tool._

* * *

As I spoke of in my opening statements on the Citadel Races, there seems to be a rule of threes in place with the sentient species we know of. Three (asari, salarian, turian) form the core of the Council. Until recently, three (humans, volus, elcor) were on the periphery, and three (quarians, krogan, batarians) were in the dubious position of once having ambassadors, Spectres and potential for council seats and then losing them.

The races that have never had any formalized relationship with the Citadel are the hanar, the drell, and the vorcha. (As an amusing sidenote, the last three known races – geth, yahg and Collectors – have not had formalized relations with anybody, continuing the trend.) The Hanar Ascendancy is considered a passively hostile state to the Council, while the drell are their servants. Until recently the vorcha were only cultivated by krogan, but recent additions to volus forces of vorcha warriors is a troubling development.

* * *

 **The Hanar**

The Hanar were never signers of the Ancestral Accords, that required all Citadel races to allow combined-race teams to examine and excavate any Prothean sites. From all known information, several core worlds of the Prothean Empire lay within hanar space and the hanar home world itself was a Prothean colony of some size.

As a result of this, and because the hanar have some method of sight and pheremonal reading that all other races lack, the Hanar are the foremost experts on the Protheans – who they also worship as gods. While in some areas hanar technology is no match for Citadel tech, in many others – particularly strange computer systems, the bizarre biotics of the drell, outlandish and nightmarish weapons and other bits and pieces of military tech – they are in advance of the Citadel race and even geth.

The Hanar have categorically denied the Council access to any Prothean ruin in their space and have paid off excavation teams more than once to discover and brutally loot-strip discovered Prothean sites outside of their space. They have attempted dozens of times to breach the Mars Archives, the Turian Hall of Knowledge on Palaven, and the Salarian Reach Research Institute.

As a result of this, the Council has gone to war against the Hanar twice – once not long after the Krogan Rebellions, and a second time roughly two hundred years ago. Both of these so-called Refusal Wars ended in staggering, embarrassing losses in Council forces and – in the second – the assassination of the entire Council and the elimination of eleven Spectres by Remembrance Dancers.

As a result the hanar are, with the exception of known outcasts such as Delan the Indulgent and Farmas the Denied, refused access to the Citadel and to most of Council space. The Hanar Ascendancy's basic stance is that any non-hanar possessing Prothean tech is a heretic who should be put to death, and they consider all Mass Relays and the Citadel itself to be Prothean tech.

The Hanar maintain strong relationships with the Batarian Empire, oddly enough, and are major customers of the Terminus systems. Most of the piracy and raiding done in the Bright and Outer Rim, and in pieces of the Volian Traverse, is financed by hanar wealth.

The hanar army is surprisingly powerful, and the hanar navy, while smaller than most other navies, is not only exquisitely trained but armed with weapons of sickening power, of Prothean design and unknown function. At least one of the weapons systems, the Prism Lance, completely bypasses kinetic shielding and can core a heavy cruiser with a single shot. Hanar tech includes a bewildering array of devices, including hand-held shields that can expand out to three times their width and block even direct tank fire, computer systems based on piezoelectric crystals and holographic imaging, strange stealth systems that can blank out a ship's FTL wake and blueshift, and more.

Hanar are gasbag like creatures that 'speak' through a mix of luminescence in several wavelengths combined with an elcor-like pheremonial emission that cannot be translated by Citadel tech. Drell often modify their eyes and sense of smell to pick up on this.

* * *

 **The Drell**

Ascetic and fatalistic, the drell are humanoid desert dwellers who the hanar saved from self-destruction after the ecosphere and climate of their world collapsed. While originally only trying to save a small fraction of the race, the drell's species-wide agreement to literal slavery for a hundred generations prompted the hanar to expend a vast sum of money and capital to evacuate nearly their entire population.

In return, the drell served the hanar faithfully, and even upon the expiration of the forced servitude contract, continue to do so. The drell government is independent on paper but in practice is a client state of the Hanar Ascendancy by choice. Every century they have a race wide vote done to see if they will remain so, the last vote had 82.5% of the race voting to do so – and 15.8% voting to do so in perpetuity and stop the voting.

Drell are lethal combatants, with biotic power that rivals an asari coupled with blindingly fast speed near akin to a salarian. As bad as this is, their physical strength and stamina are more on par with turians than humans, and they have a host of natural advantages. They cannot be strangled, have built-in abilities to navigate even in darkness, completely photographic memories, and a staggering level of immunity to almost all diseases and pathogens. Their only weakness is a vulnerability to highly humid environments that eventually causes lung decay, but hanar science has made strides in addressing this.

Drell do not worship the Protheans, although they see them as admirable. They have a pantheon of gods stemming from their wandering survivalist days, and are highly religious. They see sin as something imparted by the originator of an act, not the person who carries it out. As such, to keep their race clean of 'sin', they ritualistically have a caste of priest-assassins, the Remembrance Dancers, who kill their foes and keep the memory of their deaths alive and mourn them. The Dancers are widely feared, known to have achieved impossible kills and acts of infiltration. While not immortal – they can be dispatched by en masse attacks if overwhelmed – they are almost impossible to beat one on one.

The drell bring heavy hitting power to the hanar military. Drell ships differ in design while making use of the hanar tech base, providing heavily-armored defense ships that protect the lighter built, more heavily armed hanar ships. The drell army is fanatical and over forty percent of them have biotics, can march for days on end without food or water, and has a religious belief that dying in the name of their gods ensures a better life in reincarnation.

The drell, curiously, seem highly impressed by humanity for reasons that have not been made clear. I find it rather curious (and hilarious) that their impression of the asari is that they are deceitful to themselves and all others, the salarians as immoral and lost in their own pursuit of perfection, and the turians as brutal schizophrenics trying to justify immolating half their own people for honor. Their moral code is the only one with much similarity to ours, including injunctions against dishonesty, theft, and sexual immorality.

* * *

 **The Vorcha**

Ah, the cockroaches of the galaxy. The Vorcha are a barely sentient species that has demonstrated a laughable inability to stop murdering and eating each other long enough to move past the bronze age. With limited creativity, endless aggression, a short temper and a shorter lifespan, vorcha evolved on a literal hellworld that would challenge krogan survivalists to endure.

The vorcha were 'uplifted' by the krogan, if you can call it that, and for the past few centuries have mainly served as krogan fodder. Vorcha only value strength and power, for the most part, and were enthusiastic students of the sort of violence the krogan exemplify.

Fragmentary evidence suggests that there was a short period of time where there was a least a partially functioning global government, under the aegis of a rather intelligent linage of vorcha known as the Bosses. When civil war wracked the vorcha home world, most of the Bosses were killed, and no stable government has really emerged from the fighting. As a result, the Council declined to offer the vorcha any form of even associate membership – as I said once before, putting a vorcha ambassador on the Citadel would just result in someone being eaten.

Vorcha breed even more rapidly than turians, and can adapt to almost any environment due to a majority of their body being comprised of something akin to stem cells that allow for rapid and drastic mutation. Vorcha are perhaps the hardiest and most hardened survivors in the galaxy, capable of living through events that would eliminate most races.

Vorcha are almost immune to all known diseases, laugh off even the strongest toxins and nerve agents, think stun weaponry and even neural maces 'tickle', and can survive being shot in multiple places and missing more than one limb. The vorcha religion worships fire as a divine being and they are in love with any form of fire-based weaponry.

Vorcha never developed shipbuilding technology (or much of any other kind of technology) and yet, if properly trained, can become effective repair engineers. Despite my sneering dismissal, vorcha are not exactly stupid – merely very violent and disinterested in anything but eating, killing and fire. That being said, vorcha trained from birth can be 'civilized' and are excellent pilots, highly skilled infantry, well above average metal-smiths, and can produce surprisingly complex and multifaceted art.

The vorcha threat is that they can be crafted to whatever an end user wants, as they have almost no innate culture and no morals. Vorcha are completely fearless of death, as they think all vorcha simply come back in a new body unless they are killed with fire. (Given some of the things I've seen vorcha survive – including being struck by a out of control heavy air truck, falling into a vat of industrial acids, and even being shot by a railgun – this may not be as outlandish as it appears.)

The vorcha language – described as mostly snarl with the occasional bite or smack to the head – is hardly translatable, but most vorcha speak broken Galactic Asari Standard. Vorcha are curiously bichiral, capable of utlizing both levo and dextro proteins. Their blood is very slightly basic and can be refined into a potent compound to purify infected wounds.

* * *

 **Final Notes**

The Hanar Ascendancy has been increasingly belligerent in the aftermath of the Benezia Incident, demanding all wreckage from Nazara be turned over to them and attempting several raids on various locales identified as Prothean sites in the incident. Reports from the agents we have in the Traverse indicate the Hanar are hiring on large amounts of mercenary units from the Terminus Systems and building remote bases in deserted systems along the Bright Rim.

Our own threat analysis indicates a good chance of another Refusal War brimming if the Council decides to take action to stop this buildup before it gets too big, and if the Hanar can bring Aria into the fight we could be looking at a potential disaster. Aria with hanar tech is simply a threat that cannot be tolerated or allowed.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** _My main fic story, Of Sheep and Battle Chicken (OsaBC) is set in an alternative universe to the 'canon' Mass Effect. My initial intent with the story was to do a 'show, not tell' reinterpretation, similar to but with a different focus than_ Renegade Reinterpretations. _It wasn't intended to be a complete rewrite at the beginning, and it has grown faster and more AU than I originally intended._

 _The purpose of this document is to outline the AU world I work in. It is a more renegade place, if that word has any meaning at all, which I doubt. The difference between Paragon and Renegade is that Paragons do things the right way, and Renegades do things any way that achieves what they want. Not all good is nice, and not all bad is evil. But at the end of the day, both Paragons and Renegades end up doing the right thing._

 _The Cerberus Files is a story,written around a series of reports gathered by the leadership of Cerberus during the events of ME1 and parts of ME2. The key actors are:_

 _-Dr. Minsta, a brilliant doctor, historian, psychologist and economic guru  
_

 _-Matriarch Trellani, an outcast asari matriarch who has joined Cerberus after discovering the truth of Athame, and now plots to eradicate the Thirty_

 _-General Petrovsky, much the same as in canon but with a different focus._

 _-Pel, a cruelly dispassionate wet-work operator and assassin for the Illusive Man, who's past is a jagged mess of regrets_

 _-Kai Leng, an equally cruel murderer who is more subtle and nuanced than the canon version._

 _-Prime 302, a battered survivor network of the Geth which is captured by Cerberus_

 _-Shades-Of-Examined-Views, an Ascention Protocol Level III Collector captured by Cerberus_

* * *

 _This part of this work is a review of the so-called separatist races: Hanar, Drell, and Vorcha._ _Other documents will cover the other races._


	2. Hanar History

_**A/N:** Shorter than most, but the reason why should be easy to understand. Minsta feels curiously flat when it comes to spewing vitriol against the jellyfish. I wonder why.  
_

* * *

 **The Cerberus Files: Separatist Races**

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Sir,

The hanar, being the most troubling and mysterious of the three separatist races, is where I will start. Unfortunately, as you will see, putting together a coherent history that shines any light on the hanar themselves is nigh unto impossible - the best I can do is provide an overview of how they have interacted with the greater galaxy.

And while I'm certainly not upset that a group of squids managed to beat the Citadel three times, it does provide me a sense of worry that we're missing something critical here. More insight into the hanar can probably be gained by their culture and religion than their spotty history.

 **Cerberus Thought of the Day:** _The use of tradition can counter alienation and confusion - not all old-fashioned ideas should be tossed aside for shiny untested ones.  
_

* * *

Inevitably, any examination of the hanar evokes a complicated set of reactions.

Those who have seen the bared might of the Citadel Fleets, the endless ranks of turian warriors and the gleaming hordes of the asari, or experienced the visceral terror of facing their special forces and the STG, can hardly comprehend how seeming third-rate powers such as the Ascendancy or the Warlords of the Traverse can stand them off and in some cases, humiliate them in military combat.

While I suspect the main reason the Citadel has not gone into the Terminus is due to a lack of resource to actually absorb the region and suppress the hostiles, the Hanar Ascendancy has a much simpler answer – they are far, far older than the Citadel species, and while their territory is certainly smaller, every single system is heavily fortified with powerful automated defenses. The Hanar have technology that even when captured the Citadel species have not been able to reverse engineer or operate, and it is suspected that they may have one or more active Prothean VI units.

Up until this point the Alliance has had very little meaningful contact with the Hanar aside from deflecting their damnable drell flunkies from infiltrating the Mars Archives. Certainly the AIS has not given them a very definitive threat rating, nor is Alliance High Command paying them much attention.

An overview of their history, however, illustrates why Trellani was so insistent we do not antagonize them.

 **Historical Overview: Known Prehistory**

Acquiring historical information about the hanar is highly difficult because they resist any penetration into their space. The STG and other groups have, over the years, put together pieces, but most of what we know is from the 'valkhana' drell, those who decided against the Submission and who held out on Rakhana until rescued by Citadel exploration teams in the First War of Refusal.

According to the valkhana, the hanar are much older than even the asari. The information they obtained from the hanar was often mired in mythology and religious belief, so the below is highly speculative, but fits all known evidence.

From what we know, the hanar arose on a major Prothean colony. This colony was apparently used to create and package massive amounts of aquatic foodstuffs, and many of the sea creatures on Kahje show very clear signs of Prothean gengineering. The colony was mostly on land, but a good amount of it was undersea as well.

Given what we know about the Reaper invasions, that such a prime world was left unspoiled is puzzling. From several STG co-opted drell spies, we know that there is no sign of orbital bombardment in the system, much less on Kahje itself. Additionally, if the valkhana are correct, most of the Prothean structures on the world were not ruins, but perfectly preserved.

If the hanar priesthood is to be believed (and I'd rather listen to siaraist preaching) the Protheans ascended to the heavens and left behind their works to their children, the hanar. While this is the most patent sort of nonsense, it certainly cannot be denied that the hanar have a far greater grasp on Prothean technology than the rest of the council races do.

From the limited diplomatic exchanges conducted when the Council discovered the hanar, the rough outline of the valkhana, and various other observations, the prehistorical aspects of hanar existence are murky but followable. Hanar evolved from some form of jelly-fish like creature, and like all life on their home world were heavily modified with a sort of touch-type pheremonal telepathy and the ability to see into the UV spectrum.

In their underwater environment technological advance was undoubtedly slow. The hanar claim the Protheans left behind systems to teach them how to harness the resources left behind. The truth of this is unknown, but it can be noted that there are no words for 'nation', 'tribe', 'war', or even 'conflict' in the hanar language. Hanar have ALWAYS – as far back as anyone knows, and according to the valkhana, far before the asari even left their world – been unified under the priesthood.

There have been only ninety-four hanar dissidents that have broken from the Ascendancy in over thousands of years of recorded history. Even elcor are not that culturally homogeneous.

* * *

 **Recorded History : Pre-citadel**

I am forced to rely on the so-called hanar gospels of ascension, the religious recorded history of their species, as there simply are no other sources for historical information. While the hanar vouchsafed a few things to the drell (and thus the valkhana) about their prehistory they were oddly quiet about their early recorded history.

What is known is that the hanar apparently mastered operating out of the water almost thirty-five thousand years ago, and were active in space as long ago as twenty-nine thousand years ago. Hanar probe wrecks and religious cairns have been found in salarian and asari space, dating back to twenty-six thousand years.

What is curious, of course, is that the hanar did not simply spread throughout the galaxy entire. There is clear evidence that they must have looted a great deal of Prothean tech long before any other race was flying about in space, and certainly fragmentary evidence showing they found the Citadel long before the asari. But they expanded to their known ninety colonized systems and have not founded any new hanar colonies in tens of thousands of years.

Hanar religious documents claim they are following the instructions of their ancient Prothean gods. The only curious thing about the worlds the hanar settle is that none of them have a direct connection to a relay system. While all are in easy FTL range of the relays in the area, not a single world colonized by them has a mass relay in it.

Hanar religious texts claim they wandered the galaxy for ten thousand years, seeking 'knowledge' before finding something they called the 'Dark Gods'. (Curiously, also the appellation the batarians use for their divinities.). They recoiled from these Dark Gods and have stayed within their space for the most part ever since.

Roughly three thousand years before the Asari found the Citadel, the hanar observed the drell home world undergo ecological collapse after their fifth world war, which involved heavy use of nuclear and biochemical weapons. According to their gospels, the hanar were not going to intervene until one of their 'gods' spoke to the Highest Choir and told them to save the drell.

The rescue effort highlighted the terrifying technology of the hanar quite nicely. They managed to evacuate nearly three quarters of a billion drell in less than a year, even while resettling them. The chaos of the evacuation exposed many drell females to eezo, which eventually resulted in the drell expressing biotics. Given that hanar cannot use biotics, this was seen as a sign of approval from the Protheans, and the hanar opened their archives of Prothean texts and artifacts on biotics to their new servants.

A minority of the drell, the valkhana, eventually decided not to leave their home world, and their once highly advanced culture slowly collapsed into post-apocalyptic survivalists and mystics. The hanar, for the most part, wrote them off, although many drell would return from time to time, dropping off supplies, medical technology, and weather control equipment.

The hanar settled the drell first on Kahje, but the oceanic environment proved nearly lethal. The hanar then settled them on much drier worlds, and on a series of colonies along the border that were not garden worlds and required much terraforming work to be done. These drell colonies – around forty – form a barrier around the Hanar Ascendancy itself, often placed in systems with relays that move deeper into hanar territory to defend them.

There is evidence – both in religious apocrypha and hints from the valkhana – that the hanar encountered and nearly destroyed another space-faring race during this time. Based on the fragmentary descriptions, it sounds like they encountered the rachni, who we now know were expanding outwards for some time. The long mysterious reason why the rachni had only a handful of worlds is possibly explained by the hanar destroying the rest of the rachni colony and deactivating the main relay leading to the rest of the galaxy from their region.

Asari scout ships in the decades before the discovery of the Citadel reported more than one shadowy sensor reading, but the asari were never able to make contact. The majority of these occurred near hanar space, and it is likely the more advanced sensors of the hanar were used to observe the asari.

* * *

 **Post-Citadel settlement history and the Refusal**

It is unsure how the hanar looked at the Citadel prior to its inhabitance by the asari and later the salarians. It's clear that the hanar boarded it multiple times, but they never attempted to inhabit it at any point. Their religious statements indicate their gods said it was a place to be worshiped from afar but dangerous to live upon, and that when the time was ready, it would prove their final battleground for the favor of the Gods.

Given what we know now about Nazara and the Reapers, it's possible the Protheans were attempting to setup some sort of resistance by preparing the hanar far in advance. In any event, not long after the salarians and asari met and began reshaping the Citadel, the Hanar Ascendancy sent their first emissary ship.

We have the Citadel scans of the ship, which at the time amused the asari and salarians. The hanar emissary ship was merely a small ship, roughly frigate-scale, with no weapons and no real defenses and what appeared to be a primitive FTL drive. The hanar informed the two species that the Citadel was a holy space and they were defiling it and should leave.

They refused, of course, and the emissary warned of grievous consequences for this defiance before leaving. While the asari and salarians assumed the hanar were more technologically primitive than they were, they were still somewhat disturbed by their threatening words. As a result, the two species began to cooperate more fully, eventually forming the strong alliance that eventually roped the turians into place.

However, that was in the future. Given that the salarians and asari thought themselves supreme, they did not worry much about the hanar, and continued to expand their territories. They discovered others, such as the elcor, who also seemed primitive, and when they formed their Council decided not to bother inviting anyone else to join in a ruling sense.

Around this time the asari began investigating Prothean ruins, finding some that had not been already plundered by the hanar. One of these, a sort of military base clearly ruined by Reaper activity, gave information and coordinates to various Prothean colonies and structures clearly in hanar space. The asari and salarians, having already decided to pool any Prothean knowledge, wrote new Citadel laws stating that all Prothean ruins were to be studied by an asari/salarian tech team and that restricting access to such ruins, no matter their location, was forbidden.

The elcor, the newly discovered quarians, and the batarians had no way to really resist this effort, and could only watch mostly impotently as asari and salarian teams 'investigated' the ruins in their limited territories. The asari and salarians then turned their eyes to hanar space, sending a message to the High Chorus to provide them with a list of all Prothean ruins in their space and prepare to hand them over.

The hanar pointed out that they had not bothered sending any ambassador to the Citadel, were never invited to do so, and did not hold themselves as part of, as they put it, 'primitive hooligan heathens'. The asari, incensed, began preparations for war, along with the salarians.

It must be pointed out that until this point there simply was no real space warfare. There had never been any, aside from very small amounts of pirates. There were no fully developed strategies and none of the asari or salarian warships had ever been tested in any real battles.

Thus, when the united asari salarian fleet stormed into the Ascendancy, with their newly developed heavy cruisers and the very first iteration of disruptor torpedoes, they expected a quick and easy fight. That fleet ran smack into the Primus Choir Fleet of the hanar.

Words alone cannot describe the sheer mismatch in power. Scraps of video remain, mostly from the few asari vessels that managed to escape, showing the hanar dreadnoughts firing prism cannons and incinerating dozens of ships in a single shot. The primitive missile technology of the asari and the drone fighters of the salarians were no match for the hanar's laser based defense nets, which inspired GARDIAN systems.

This was not a war – it really only consisted of seven fleet battles and six attempted and horribly routed invasions. The untried fleets of the Citadel outnumbered the hanar ships, but the systems themselves were ten times more heavily defended than Sol itself. This was the first exposure of the asari to what scaled up mag-rail systems could achieve, as well as pure matter/antimatter weapons.

Reeling and broken, the asari and salarians finally quit the field of battle, expecting a counter invasion that never happened. The Hanar merely smugly warned them that attempts at entering hanar space without permission would be punished harshly and then severed contact.

It is worth noting that this debacle shook both asari and salarian confidence in war as a means of victory, and also gave them unreasonable fear of Hanar technological prowess. In later years and in the two Refusal Wars, this fear is what held back the Council races from a supreme effort.

* * *

 **Post Krogan Rebellions and the First Refusal War**

During the chaos of the Rachni War, the krogan uplift, the krogan rebellions and the rise of the turians, the Hanar Ascendancy was mostly quiet. They did begin to do minor trading with various races for the first time, the drell acting as a sort of mediator and middleman, and were one of the reasons why the bands of disaffected refugees, bitter outcasts and criminals in what would one day become the Terminus systems were able to survive.

One interesting thing that happened during the Rachni Wars was the Hanar transmitting the locations of the rachni hiveworlds to the Citadel. It was an unexpected offer, and while it was not accompanied by any offer of rapprochement the asari saw it as a positive thing.

In the aftermath of the rebellions, however, with the added might of the turian fleets, alongside the asari and salarian fleets now being bloodied and war-tested, there was much discussion on how to deal with the hanar. The Hierarchy in particular was incensed at the hanar trading with turian separatist movements, and it was suspected hanar were selling weapons and technology to rising power blocs in the Terminus systems.

At the same time, more Prothean ruins uncovered over the years seemed to point at several locations in hanar space that offered truly amazing insights into Prothean technology. STG units managed to obtain minor glimpses of some of the hanar technology and – with the krogan beaten and the fleets unified – it was eventually decided by the Council that the hanar could be brought to heel.

Not all agreed with this plan. In particular, several asari of the Thirty and the Manno Family of Sur'kesh felt the attempt would be pointless. The turian Primarch, Sathin Vakarian, was not intimidated by a bunch of 'big jellies', and boasted his men would have talons on Kahje within a fortnight if they didn't cooperate.

Despite the bombastic tone, asari and salarian military leaders were worried. Only a handful of asari alive remembered the earlier conflict, but their stories gave many pause. Still, technology had come a long way in the years since then, and while the hanar had not grown the asari and salarians were many times stronger than before.

Diplomatic contacts were attempted first, along with a revised version of the agreement on Prothean ruins called the Ancestral Accords. Specifically, instead of only asari-salarian teams, mixed teams would be put forth, and the home world systems of a race were not required to be opened for examination. Additionally the Citadel would 'compensate' races for removed items, and share their own Prothean finds freely.

The Hanar priesthood actually sent a priest to the diplomatic meeting, who calmly informed the Citadel Council that all Prothean ruins in Hanar space were holy sites, and that the hanar had no intention of opening up their religious sites to alien looters. The hanar were perfectly willing to live in isolated peace, but if the Council wished to force the issue, this time they would be 'severely chastised' instead of merely 'warned'.

The turians did not take well to this sort of talk, especially when they were dismissed as 'mercenary trashpickers licking the boots of your asari and salarian masters'. The hanar emissary was arrested and the Citadel attempted to seize his ship.

The ship detonated, killing several dozen STG and investigative units, while the hanar priest simply died via the use of some kind of internal poison sac. Stymied and insulted, the Citadel formally went to war, using a cover of going in to 'free' the drell from slavery.

The opening battles of the war seemed promising. The drell and hanar fleets were still small and highly mobile, refusing to give battle in the depths of space and falling back from the borders. As they penetrated deeper, they came across the ravished hellscape of Rakhana, and through communications with the valkhana, acquired drell who were not loyal to the hanar and had valuable information on what they were facing.

Three drell loyalist colonies fell in short order, the defenses suppressed and the fleets refusing to give battle. Many wondered if the earlier defeat had simply been due to timidity and lack of will to fight, and the turians in particular aggressively moved inwards, bypassing several drell colonies to strike at a hanar colony.

The Battle of Dithia was where the fear of the hanar solidified. Outnumbering the hanar ships almost sixteen to one, the combined Council fleet expected an easy win. Barely six minutes into the battle the main scouting elements ran into some nanometer level micromines, while huge mass accelerators struck every single dreadnought in the invading force with heavy asteroids barely seconds later.

In the chaos and confusion, the system defenses opened up and the hanar attacked. Their lasernets were far more efficient than GARDIAN lasers at picking off missiles, and they had ships with some form of short range teleportation device that allowed crazed Remembrance Dancers to board ships remotely.

The main turian flagship attempted to engage the hanar dreadnought, and after a brutal twenty minute exchange the turian ship was a burning wreck and the hanar ship had weakened shields and a single hull breach. Panicking salarians fled while the asari lines were broken, and only turian discipline and sacrificing entire cruiser squadrons prevented a complete rout.

Reeling from the loss, they fell back, only to discover in horror where the rest of the hanar fleets were. Hanar raiding teams tore out of the night across the Citadel space, erupting into a system only long enough to fire a storm of mass accelerator fire at defenseless colonies before retreating. Hidden drell saboteurs blew up dozens of fueling stations and ammo depots, while a daring hanar fleet managed to break through the defenses at Palaven and bomb the shipbuilding orbital docks with a mix of antimatter and polonium extracta, ruining them.

More turian fleets rushed into the fray, and the hanar pulled back their forces to defend. The battles were not all one sided – more than a few hanar ships were lost, and two hanar colonies eventually destroyed after brutal, grueling and bloody invasions. But not a single Prothean artifact was recovered, and the losses they were taking were unbelievably high.

The First Contact War ended when Remembrance Dancers managed to sneak aboard the Citadel, stealing a number of highly valuable Prothean artifacts from the Council Vaults, and leaving a ritual drell knife next to the sleeping figures of each Councilor. The message was made more clear the next day when Chela T'Armal awoke to the sound of fighting. A Remembrance Dancer had broken into her estate, slaughtered her personal guards was holding the sleeping form of a very young Thana T'Armal over his shoulder.

Ganar Okeer, the krogan warlord engaged by the T'Armal to teach their heirs how to fight, engaged the drell and managed, after a long and nearly lethal fight, to kill him and save the child, but the implications were clear.

It took a week to reach a 'peace' treaty, which was surprisingly lenient. The Hanar did not ask for reparations and did not bother to keep any of their prisoners, shipping them all back in mass-built haulers. They warned that their patience with such antics was expended, however, and the next time the Council felt arrogant enough to try the wrath of the servants of the Gods they would suffer far more greatly.

* * *

 **THE INTERCESSION AND THE SECOND REFUSAL WAR**

The galaxy took a while to recover from the First Refusal War, but the turians made very careful study of what the battles taught them.

Hanar on ocean worlds were best matched with asari, as neither turians nor salarians were good at underwater fighting. The drell were excellent snipers, powerful biotics, and lethal in one on one combat, but did poorly in line battles and had a crippling lack of armor. Hanar ships were incredibly powerful but slow, poorly armored once you breached the powerful shields, and while the main guns were devastating, could be overwhelmed if hit from many directions at once.

The asari took away their own lessons – drell Remembrance Dancers were best thwarted by masses of commandos instead of one-on-one fights with war priestesses. The asari refined their underwater capabilities and developed new biotic defenses against the outlandish powers of the drell, while mastering plasma bolt technology which seemed more effective against the hanar kinetic barriers than normal mass accelerator rounds.

The Salarian STG managed to plant more than a few of the Valkhana as spies within the Ascendancy, giving them a much better picture of what they were facing. The hanar depended very heavily on automated defense systems, and if these could be crippled or hacked the colonies would be a much easier nut to crack.

I personally find it amusing that no one bothered to consider that a race with less than a hundred and twenty systems managed to hold off the three most powerful fleets in the galaxy and distribute an embarrassing beating. The pride of the turians was stung, but the fact that a Second war happened is more due to the salarian lust for technology and secrets than anything else.

In the interim, the quarian situation blew up, and Aria became a fixture in the Terminus systems, which heavily distracted the asari. The batarians were becoming more and more problematic, while the Troubles in turian space began sapping the mobility and force effectiveness of the Turian fleets.

The drell were often sent out as emissaries after the First Refusal War, mostly to non-Council races. At the same time, a handful of 'exiled' hanar arrived on the Citadel, and their words gave the first clear insight into exactly what the hell was going on inside the Ascendancy.

The information that the Hanar had active, live and undamaged Prothean VI systems, as well as large numbers of undamaged Prothean settlements and possibly more than twenty Prothean Beacons was simply too much for the Council to overlook. The leader of the hanar outcasts, Delan the Indulgent, started a hanar community on the Citadel, one that has grown quite large as hanar breed rapidly. These 'Citadel Hanar' are known for being somewhat drifty and over-given to poetry, but are in actuality nothing like the hanar inside the Ascendancy.

Nevertheless, the exposure of people to Delan and his kind – absentminded, kind, and of course a little too quick to engage in mind-blasting debauchery with the asari sluts – further moved people away from the hard lessons learned in the First Refusal War. Another two hundred and fifty years passing meant that only asari really remembered what it was like, and many of those who were critical in the fight were either dead or busy with matriarchal duties.

When Citadel evacuated the last of the drell from Rakhana (at salarian insistance), the Council decided to have a series of meetings on the state of galactic stability. The collapse of the quarians and the growing power of Aria disturbed more than one leader, and the fact that the STG was almost sure the hanar had some sort of line of communication with Aria was intolerable.

When STG spies announced the hanar had discovered a semi-functioning Prothean warship deep in the Traverse and had hauled it back to Kahje for study, that was the final straw. Angrily demanding the warship be turned over to the Citadel as it was not in Hanar territory, the Council began preparing for war.

The rise of the Spectre corps and the evolution of other races special forces, as well as more advanced technology, made the Council feel that this war would be a winning one. They grossly underestimated the amount of damage the Troubles and the loss of quarian engineering prowess would do to the Citadel war machine. They also failed to realize that the Valkhana were seeded heavily with loyalist drell, who were now scattered all over the place and setting up networks of intelligence agents.

The hanar responded with a scale model of the ship in question and a suggestion that the Council mind its own business, and the Council (again) declared war. This time, a few elcor and volus ships participated, as well as batarians – both Spectres and ships – alongside the rest.

The First Refusal War was an actual war, the Second was … well, more of an embarrassment. Whatever technology the hanar had picked up from the Protheans had been heavily refined, and the fleets of the Citadel found themselves facing three times as many ships as they expected, with new weapons systems and a shielding system that somehow took almost twice as many hits from torpedoes to bring down.

Hanar ships also now suddenly supported extremely powerful infowar suites that hacked and overloaded council ships life support, while their drell had added new tactical tricks and evolved their biotic powers considerably. Sabotage rang out across the races of the Council, as the first three battles were ugly routs.

The fourth battle, the Battle of Jhalge, was the single worst defeat in Council history, worse than anything in the Rachni Wars or Rebellions. Six dreadnoughts and over two hundred other ships were destroyed completely, and five hundred more badly damaged and forced to withdraw piecemeal. Almost three hundred thousand turian and batarian infantry were killed in their landing ships, and hanar strike forces harried the retreating units back to elcor space, where they blew up the HE3 refineries in range and did something to shut the mass relay down that took nine days to undo.

By that time, the hanar had stormed past the blocking fleet at Severus to hit Palaven directly, bombarding the Primarchal Tower and blowing two turian dreadnoughts out of the sky to crash in heavily populated cities, killing tens of thousands.

A fifteen-person strong Spectre Task Force – including two war priestesses, a Glorious, and two salarian mystics – tried and failed to kill the High Chorus, instead being slaughtered and captured by Remembrance Dancers. More Dancers got aboard the Citadel and this time executed the entire Council, killing the Council Members and their ambassadors before blowing up the defense tower of the Citadel and sabotaging the GTS systems.

A hanar fleet fought past the guardians leading to the Widow Nebula Relay and got through it, threatening to bombard the Citadel itself if immediate surrender was not proffered. Unable to close the ward arms and with fleets moving in all directions, the C-SEC Executor and the turian admiral in charge of the Citadel Defense Team surrendered.

The hanar withdrew again, along with their Drell, and did not proffer further communication for almost forty years. Every other attempt after this to drum up support for invasions has been tabled by the Council.

About five years before the First Contact War, the Hanar Ascendancy sent a drell ambassador to the Citadel. The drell explained that his race had completed their life-debt and that the hanar instructed them to 'mingle' with other races. As such, the drell ambassador is empowered to also speak for the Hanar, and a small number of drell ships cooperate with Council forces.

Additionally, several Ascendancy Hanar have traveled to various universities doing Prothean studies, providing assistance (with a heavy dollop of religiosity). The situation is tense but defrosting for the most part, as the hanar apparently do not hold grudges and do not care much about the opinions of others.

The Hanar outcasts and the valkhana do not associate with these forces, instead mostly remaining in the Kithoi Ward of the Citadel. A handful of drell valkhana have immigrated to the Systems Alliance although with limited rights.

* * *

 **Final Notes**

The real amount of information known on the hanar is distressingly small. There is simply no way to do any kind of archaeological research in their space, and their lifestyle and underwater habitation means there is little hard evidence for us to examine in any event.

The disturbing points – the complete and eerie unity, far beyond the wildest dreams of any asari; the strange technology and biotic abilities; and most of all the weirdness about being attacked – these worry me. The Hanar are playing some game I cannot see, for stakes I cannot fathom. That makes them very dangerous, Mr. Harper.

There are those who suggest we should attempt to take from them some of these secrets, and my answer is to observe the fate of the First and Second Refusal Wars. It is not that the hanar are invincible or unbeatable. They can and have been beaten, and they can and have had things stolen from them.

The problem is that the hanar clearly have some method for understanding Prothean technology better than we do, and unless we choose to use outcast hanar as scientists, we have no way of matching that. Additionally, it strikes me that the hanar are protecting something – guarding something. Until we know what and why, intersession seems a poor idea.

The tendency to dismiss the hanar as harmless gasbags more concerned about poetry and wild asari orgies than anythings serious is … curious. It strikes me that the hanar outcasts have never really proffered WHY they are outcasts, and that it sure was convenient they showed up when they did or the valkhana hung on long enough on Rakhana to be rescued.

A more paranoid mind might think such populations were spies.


	3. Hanar Psychology

_**A/N:** Oddly enough, coming up with big stupid jellyfish psychology is not the easiest thing to do. Himura, I hope this fails to answer a thing and only baffles more :D_

* * *

 **The Cerberus Files: Separatist Races**

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Sir,

Hanar 'psychology' is something of a field that sojourns with 'salarian morality', 'batarian decency' and 'vorcha literature'. It is innately self-contradicting, flying in the face of everything we know about sapience in a way that - frankly - scares me.

For all the presumption of alien inscrutability, I remain aware that aliens are all too often merely 'different' in the views of many uneducated peasants to busy drooling over some blue witches tits, or stunned into submission by the power wielded by these races. They are alien to us for a reason, and while we can find points of commonality with them, we can also find points of commonality with _a fucking fungus_. That does not imply the two are comparable or compatible.

But the hanar may actually be ... well, inscrutable. Their mindsets and views on everything are so far out of band with what other races see life as consisting of that even even highly alien cultures like turian or elcor seem familiar by comparison. One thing stands out - any form of memetic or psychological warfare against these being is utterly useless, as it presupposes certain outlooks that - as I describe - simply don't exist.

The more I learn, the more disturbed I become.

 **Cerberus Thought of the Day:** _Assessment of the threat cannot involve exposure, or the very nature of the assessment becomes flawed by way of needs._ _  
_

* * *

I am sorely tempted to a make an offhand joke about the difficulty of exploration of the psychology of a race of religious fanatic jellyfish who worship literal space gods. On its surface the premise is … well, laughable. The hanar are often the lampoons of late night comics and the occasional meme, and Blasto the Hanar Spectre is comedic silliness due to the view that no hanar could ever be 'badass'.

Since I am not Pel, however, I can restrain myself from such intellectual frippery, and question exactly why the hanar project themselves as incompetent when they are not. It may be that there are perfectly good cultural reasons for such, or perhaps they simply do not care what other races think. However, I still maintain that, much like their history, much about the psychology of the hanar simply does not add up. It raises more questions than it answers, and the answers themselves have a hint of the disturbing to them.

That being said, I must also warn that hanar psychology must be taken with a certain viewpoint. As I noted in the history section, on the surface looking at the hanar doesn't show how they could have withstood Citadel Forces in their entirety, much less devastated them. They did so by only attacking with specialist strike units, misdirection, and relying on powerful defenses to even the odds. If you don't take into account those elements the hanar history looks .. questionable. Even if you do, unless you take the time to see why they were successful – i.e., they dictated where battles happened, did not meet the Citadel Forces in open set-piece battles and only attacked from stealth – events do not make sense.

Likewise, the psychology of the hanar strikes one as faintly ridiculous on the surface, but we are dealing with creatures who communicate literally through an entire series of best-fits. There simply is no spoken hanar language, and thus I cannot help but wonder how much of the actuality of their minds and psyches we are even seeing. Alongside that is the ugly truth that most of what we know of hanar psychology comes more from indirect observation of the outcasts, who for all we know are the hanar equivalent of psychopaths.

* * *

 **Hanar Psychological Basics**

Cramming the utterly and totally alien hanar into the pyramid of needs is more difficult than I expected, as every investigation of the hanar shows exactly how, well, alien they are. Compared to them, the mentality of turians and asari might as well be identical to our own.

Maslow's pyramid generally puts basic survival and existence on bottom, social in the middle and existential needs on top. Some races like the asari switch this up, with social being on top, and others like the turians sublimate existential needs like the unity of all for even some survival aspects.

Hanar, on the other hand, are terrifying because as best I can tell, their most basic needs – above anything else – is commonality of the species. Hanar pre-history is a blank to us, but we can infer from linguistic cues and what the Outcasts have told us that the hanar NEVER developed any form of division in their people.

As a result, basic survival – food, shelter, and items needed for day to day existence – are not even something hanar think of on an individual level. That is a group concern, as all hanar will unify to ensure the whole have everything they need. A good example of this is the Outcast hanar community. Mostly in Kithoi ward they number over five thousand, and ever last one of them has all of their money in a SINGLE communal bank account with Barla Von.

Interviews have shown that the outcasts buy communal dwellings, employ each other, and regularly ensure every last member is cared for and well off. Statements from drell (both ambassadors and the valkhana) indicate much of the same is true in the Ascendancy.

To the hanar, survival is not a 'goal', it is a baseline that is the purpose of any race to care for. Individual goal-setting or even needs are always above this. Mr. Harper, this probably seems to be immaterial – after all, asari are highly communal, and turians will subjugate their own needs for others.

But no living species we know of is completely oblivious to it's own survival needs. No race, no animal, no living thing merely assumes that complete strangers of their race will ensure they are cared for. I'm not sure if this is a function of … their viewpoints on each other, or their views on survival – but it means there simply are no hanar disaffected by economics or income. It is utterly perfect communism, in that it seems to be their natural state.

Many of the outcasts run highly successful businesses. But only hanar can own stock and every bit of revenue either goes into improving the business, paying the employees, or direct into the single communal hanar account.

Even more bewildering is that during the last economic depression, when the hanar commune on the Citadel encountered hard financial times, the Ascendancy sent them half a billion credits, along with a highly smug, somewhat offensive poetic song suggesting the outcasts were not thinking clearly when they left.

These are outcasts, willing to expose some secrets of the Ascendancy and who refuse to submit to the High Chorus...and yet when they are in financial straights they get cash straight from the Ascendancy along with a snotty note saying 'pfft'.

Fucking aliens.

Maslow's pyramid helps us not a jot as we look deeper into the hanar. They don't have any sense of individual achievement – even their freaking names aren't their names, they're titles of some kind and always given by another hanar, never self chosen. I'm not even sure they have a superego. Hanar have no esteem or lack of it, do not care about recognition, and shun individual achievement in favor of gentle encouragement of their brethren to be happy and content.

Hanar sexuality is about the only thing that shows any sort of individual preferences at all, as some hanar prefer to dally with aliens. Hanar who do so are often more interested in the carnal aspects of such acts than any romantic notions, but will remain steadfast friends and completely trustworthy allies.

The very idea of hanar self-actualization seems to be heretical to them. The idea that any hanar or even group of hanar is 'in charge' or 'better' than another is met with surprising hostility. From what we understand of the High Chorus, it is not so much a formal group as just a random collection of whatever priests don't have anything to do at the time.

* * *

 **Hanar Mindsets**

Given their baffling psychological state, observations of hanar tend to try to find correlations to known behavioral sets. I maintain this is a steadfast waste of time and we need to look at the hanar mindset from a more mixed and loose viewpoint.

Ultimately, the hanar want three things – a sense of comfort and contentment, the leisure to contemplate, create and explore without the drag of survival, and the excitement of doing something other hanar do not do and then coming back to the community and sharing, hoping to inspire some other hanar to try it and then compare and contrast.

Hanar do not care about wealth. They do not care about perception. They don't even care about possessions for the most part. Interpersonal relationships, creativity, amusement and above all else a sense of detachment are what they prize. In many ways this makes them difficult to categorize.

They can't be bribed but can be distracted. They anger swiftly and then forget about the entire incident. They show no real sense of pride in anything, but if their suppositions or values are attacked defend them fiercely. They are fully content to float about and mingle, yet hold every other race as mental inferiors.

They would rather make poetry about clouds and raindrops than do any real work, but when they do choose to work they will go to absolutely ridiculous lengths. They can take on gargantuan tasks on a whim, and have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to work under intense pressure without even seeming concerned.

Ultimately, hanar seem to have one of four mindsets. There is a religious mindset, brought on by anything Prothean related, that has them appear self-effacing, humble, awed and surprisingly rigid in their thinking. Evidence contrary to their beliefs is dismissed with an airy unconcern that rivals a salarian's moral hesitation over vile science. This is not a constant mindset, but it is one that is often in evidence.

A second mindset, that of a lazily artistic and philosophical type, is also common. There is nothing of value in the eyes of this mindset, merely how one experiences things on a moment's notice. Psychologically speaking this mindset is almost akin to the sort of broken mental trauma experienced by turian 'broken', who have lost all tribal connections and have no real ties to anyone. The hanar merely are, and see themselves as a canvas of experiences.

A third mindset, their militant mindset, is shockingly different. It expresses itself in cunning misdirection, incredible bravado, mocking dismissal and above all else a level of confidence and sureness in victory that has proven incredibly morale sapping to other species. Hanar do not have a word for 'fear' – on Kahje they were apparently alpha predators of the highest order even before achieving sentience or sapience. The militant mindset is not only seen in combat – sometimes it comes out when trading, or when debating.

Finally, their mindset of productivity, when they set their mind to a task, is vastly different than the rest. Hanar appear to act in a sense of hyper-focus, often forgetting to even perform basic self-care – other hanar will bring them food or gently encourage them to sleep and cleanse themselves. Hanar can and have worked themselves to collapse or even death when in this mindset.

The curious thing is that there are 'triggering' events for each mindset. (How I despise that word, the blathering psychological trivia of now discounted mental social workers with as much credulity as Freud.) In essence, a hanar is moved only by external forces into a mindset – not by their own choice. If moved from one to another they can change completely as people, and do not appear to be able to determine when to 'move on'.

At the same time these triggers are incredibly subtle and often cannot even be identified. When in a militant mindset, for example, hanar are quite terrifying. They plot like a master STG planner and have all the morals of a particularly unscrupulous batarian, but with less pity. And then at the drop of a hat something clicks and they shrug and drape a scarf over themselves and go on to start painting or working on a poem or counting raindrops or some other aggravating nonsense.

This, above all else, is why people look at the two Wars of Refusal and are utterly baffled how the Citadel got beaten by flower-sniffing poet jellyfish. It's almost like the hanar have … programs or something in their head that are set off by certain actions, rather than rational decision making.

This is all the more utterly and completely baffling when you realize the Outcasts apparently made a choice to separate willingly from all other hanar, but we have no real understanding of WHY they did so and all the explanations make about as much sense as the notes of a vorcha chemist.

* * *

 **Hanar psychology and age**

There are only three stages of hanar aging – the blooming (birth to young adolescence), the glow (maturing from adolescence into adulthood), and the contentment (adulthood until death).

From what little we understand, newborn hanar are not really sentient. Their glows and pheromones are just babble and remain so, and they focus solely on eating and growing. At some point their brain seems to 'click' and suddenly they begin asking a torrent of questions to their parents, during the glow period.

Psychologically speaking, hanar in the blooming are not even self-aware and can have no functional psychology. It is however eerie that if they are separated from their parents they will seek out other hanar and plaintively flail about, and said hanar will take care of them as if they were their own offspring until the parents are found.

The hanar children in the glow stage are … anomalous. They are very curious, asking questions about everything, but do not demonstrate any of the four mindsets I identified earlier – instead they only present a cheerful, wondering and awestruck appreciation of literally everything. I once saw a hanar glow-child watch a kitten play with a ball of yarn as if it was the most engrossing thing it had ever seen.

I'm not sure what exactly makes them switch from such bright, curious things to … whatever in the hell is wrong the mature hanar, but it seems to happen overnight. Mental and psychological growth is always perfectly in sync with physical growth – the very day a hanar achieves full extension and size is the day it starts demonstrating adult mindsets.

This is all very curiously inflexible in my mind. Again, almost as if they were programmed. Are they really sentient, or did the Protheans create them to maintain their works and we're seeing the biological equivalent of bit decay here?

* * *

 **Hanar and Sexuality**

Given that hanar look like tentacle monsters, I was sadly unsurprising to learn that a small number of the outcasts have decided to experiment with extra-racial sexuality.

Then again, I was pleasantly surprised to realize these types were the minority.

For the most part hanar create mated pairings at some point in their life, and these pairings are permanent. Aside from the death of a spouse the hanar do not have a concept of 'separation', and all sexuality is utterly forbidden between hanar until this pairing occurs.

Hanar are protective of mates and highly protective of children, and while there is certainly no romantic aspect involved the pairs do demonstrate a clear loyalty and open friendship. The few hanar that mingle with other species do so more for the experience than anything else.

I will cover this more in the physiology session, but hanar sexual morphology is … highly mutable. Hanar are basically sexless, containing four to seven pairs of differential DNA that they swap around, and can convert multiple parts of their body to sex organs. Sexuality is of minimal importance in their minds, except as an experience.

On the other hand, the hanar who have taken up with alien mates see their sexuality as a form of art experience. The completely sickening asari House Vabo hosts a small colony (less than five hundred) such deviants, who by all understandings are addicted to asari melds.

Hanar have a known weakness for such melds, and do not really interact that much with other races in a sexual fashion. The fact that the asari themselves are partially aquatic may also play a role.

I admit, I do not look forward to writing up the physiological section.

* * *

 **Hanar and other species:**

Overall, the hanar viewpoint on aliens can be summed up by the opinion of the Ascendancy and the outcasts.

The Ascendancy sees aliens as immature, spoiled and primitive children, mucking about with dangerous things as if they were toys and being blind to the 'reality of the universe', whatever that means. They are unfailingly polite and yet serenely dismissive, giving off the sort of amused disinterest an adult human would have to a small child's outlandish superhero stories.

The Outcasts, on the other hand, seem to find aliens as hilarious entertainment, and I am beginning to wonder if this community of outcasts is actually simply the equivalent of hanar trolls, sexual deviants and shysters.

Hanar see the asari as the 'most acceptable' of the races, although details about what exactly makes them 'acceptable' remains undefined. The asari worship of Athame is something that, again for reasons unknown, seems to amuse the hanar to no end. The asari tendency to see themselves as supreme has run up several times against the hanar, and the asari's claim to be the eldest is proven false by the hanar, which means the asari Republic and most of the Thirty despise them. Outcast asari, on the other hand, like them greatly, and the hanar outcasts on the Citadel tend to treat them as one might treat small, cutesy children.

Hanar find the salarians easy to communicate with, since they (like drell) can see in UV spectra, removing the need for cumbersome and, it is suggested, vastly inaccurate translation devices. In all other aspects the hanar find salarians completely boring, obsessed with knowing the hows and whats and never considering the why, and overconfident in their own cleverness. The Ascendancy in particular delights in one-upping the STG whenever the latter attempts to infiltrate hanar space, although the use of the valkhana in recent years has reduced this. For the most part the hanar seem to find scientific discovery and the exploration of technology boring, and the constant use of salarian genetics to attempt to 'improve' themselves only more evidence that the salarian is indeed inferior.

Suggesting that hanar and turians do not get along is like pointing out that one shouldn't mix hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid. Hanar seem particularly likely to act like drifty absentminded idiots around turians, which only infuriates the spikes more because they know full well that silly act doesn't reflect how badly they smashed the Hierarchy in the Second Refusal War. More infuriatingly than that the Hanar have made several statements suggesting 'honor' is the sort of infantile moral code needed by savages too stupid to actually bother to regulate their own animal impulses. In general, hanar dismiss the turians as the equivalent of drell – mercenaries who obey their masters.

Hanar have had long-ranging philosophical discussions with the elcor, and are apparently intrigued by the viewpoints of elcor Lifemasters. The fact that elcor tend to treat Prothean ruins like honored graveyards instead of looting pits and rummage sales has also given the elcor a certain amount of respect. Elcor pheremonal emissions don't mix will with the hanar's, but the shared need for translation software gives them a certain commonality that other races lack, and since the Second Refusal War most contact with the Ascendancy itself is handled through elcor diplomats.

Hanar have had very little interaction with humans, and most of that has been of a rather hostile bent. They repeatedly attempted to breach the Mars Archives after the FCW, culminating in the outrage of a Remembrance Dancer fighting her way through over sixty defenders before the Solguard and a contingent of knights brought her to heel and executed her. The hanar have been disturbingly insistent about access to the Archives, and the Alliance response has been the same – we'll let you in when you let us have the same access to what you have. This is obviously not something the hanar are willing to do. Other than that, hanar see humans as primitive second rate asari knock-offs and are usually dismissive, while outcasts are intrigued by our art and cultures but don't care much for us as living beings.

Hanar never interacted much with the quarians before their fall and have had limited contact after it, mostly contracting the fleet to do some mining operations in preparation for a new drell colony. The hanar otherwise dismiss the quarians entirely and have not bothered to comment on their situation since they have risen to the Council itself.

For reasons that I cannot even fathom, hanar find batarians fascinating (while batarians think hanar would go well on a sandwich). In particular the hanar priesthood made several 'pilgrimages' to Khar'shan early on and continues to do so even after the fall of the Hegemony. This is notable in that the Imperial Fleet escorts such pilgrims to and from Khar'shan and they are the only sentients other than batarians allowed to see the Pillars of Strength and the Lake of Black. The batarians have traded various raw materials in return for something for centuries with the Hanar. Most disturbingly, at least in my mind given the hanar, when the batarians participated in the Second Refusal War their home-worlds and outposts were never targeted by hanar sabotage teams. Hanar are often treated rudely by batarians, but the few Imperials we've seen interacting with them treat them with a level of grudging respect and left-tilted heads we only see when they deal with near-equals.

Krogan and hanar have never really interacted on any known level, nor have the hanar dealt with volus or vorcha. In the Benezia Incident, a group of geth ships attempted to attack the Hanar Ascendancy and were literally blown to bits at the border, their vaunted capabilities and advanced technology about as useful against the hanar as spitballs against a charging yahg.


	4. Hanar Physiology

_**A/N:** Alright, done for tonight, I'm tired. Enjoy.  
_

* * *

 **The Cerberus Files: Separatist Races**

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Sir,

I am sorely glad Pel was not involved in any part of this assessment.

The physical aspects of the hanar only produce more bafflement.

 **Cerberus Thought of the Day:** _Measured choices require both time and the ability to assess, while reactive choices sacrifice depth of planning for mobility. Both can be a liability if the known intelligence is incorrect - verify before action._ _  
_

* * *

I am sorely tempted to toss this aspect of the write up off to someone else. The hanar look like someone's bad joke about tentacle monsters and the fact that a subset of them actually are infatuated with molesting alien space women sounds like some kind of horrible comedy routine on the sort of third-rate clubs commoners were patronize.

That being said, obtaining information on hanar physiology under our new aegis of the kinder, gentler Cerberus so that when Shepard wakes up she won't brutally murder us all has crimped our ability to simply, say, obtain a corpse via our old methods.

In this case, we managed to retain at least the majority of the data obtained from our agents before Cerberus was cleansed, and we got lucky in that the STG has no such scruples and obtained very detailed data from autopsies in the First and Second Contact wars. Obtaining that data, as I understand from the displeased looks of Agents Rasa and Brooks, was not easy.

As usual salarian medical researchers are appallingly sloppy, and the data our own researchers did was mostly slated towards combat vulnerabilities, this may be incomplete.

* * *

 **Hanar Basic Physiology**

Some degree of curiosity struck me as I was pursuing the records of previous anatomical dissections. Salarians tend to perform sectional gross analysis looking for things to genetically loot, while our own researchers focused more on combat analysis and vulnerabilities.

Very little insight as to how any of this all evolved, which is somewhat disappointing. There is a certain parsimonious utility of form and function and a lack of genetic dead-ends and redundant or atrophied organ systems that would seem to indicate the hanar were very heavily modified. What I find most intriguing about the basics of their physiology is that someone went to a great deal of trouble to produce what is basically an aquatic super-soldier with very limited capacity _above_ water but a overwhelming host of advantages for underwater fighting.

Who in the hell would want that? I digress.

Hanar are large (two meter plus) aquatic sea-dwellers most closely resembling the man o'war jellyfish in some regards. The body consists of a central 'sac' that is lenticular in shape, and three pairs of highly articulated tentacles that hang below the body. The entire structure is highly mobile in water due to the ability to absorb and discharge water through the membranous skin like a jet, and the tentacles are extremely flexible but tough and hard to sever.

The hanar main body is tapered at both ends and is ridged down the middle with a pair of hornlike protrusions – these are sexual organs. A narrow 'skirt' of ridged flesh provides vertical bilateral distinction, the edges of the skirt often covered in faint UV – detectable markings or patterns. The back tapered section of the body looks like a short, curved tail, directly forward of this are a pair of shallow indentations that are secondary sex organs.

The skin is surprisingly thick and tough, with an almost plasticine sheen. This skin blocks many absorbed toxins and gasses, while also being extremely heat resistance and somewhat impact deadening. The skin has a thin but very tough later of copper-stiffened keratin arranged in fine, thin plates across the front and sides of the creature for extra protection. The brain of the creature is forward in the lower part of the body that bulges out and down, along with the non-digestive organs.

Hanar have only a simplistic linkage of cartilage-like substance along with erectile tissue in certain areas rather than a skeleton. This allows them unparalleled flexibility in water and some on land. They can contract their limbs to a third of their length.

Hanar cannot float in the air naturally – they claim their Enkindler gods left them the technology they currently employ, an eezo powered mass repulsion system. Hanar strength out of water is not very high in terms of pure lifting, but their ability to strangulate should not be ignored. Hanar have extraordinary reflexes, nearly as good as drell or salarians, although in air they move ponderously.

Hanar blood systems are copper based and utilize a strange set of enzymes in oxygen binding. They appear to have evolved as rapid strike predators using waste toxins and strangulation to hunt, not endurance hunters like humans or asari. As such their lower oxygenation rates are not a drawback in short battles, but longer ones will see them tire rapidly, especially out of water. Hanar possess a membranous skin that allows them to filter oxygen from water, but also a trio of air sacs that allow them to breathe on land. No other lifeforms on Kahje has these organs and they show signs of clear genetic modification. The hanar blood system is simplified with multiple two-chamber heart pumps, all blood being driven to several filtering organs and passing through the digestive bag.

The hanar nervous system is strange in the extreme. Their brain is a series of small organs linked together with a fibrous network of neural exchangers that almost appear artificial. It's possible each 'brain cluster' is segmented and handles different aspects. What is truly disturbing is that the central nervous system is not anything like this cluster. It is a series of blood-vessel like capillary networks carrying a sort of weak copper suspension that conducts electrical charge, and it interfaces with only the fibrous neural exchange tissue, not the 'brain clusters' themselves.

The hanar immune system is extremely anomalous, mostly composed of utterly bizarre tyrosine kinase equivalents that conduct some kind of DNA and ATP polling on cells and destroy those that don't provide a correct response chain. Rather than relying on antibodies or other protein match elements, this results in a high level of culling of older cells. Hanar regenerate faster than asari but much slower than krogan and only fitfully from wounds. On the other hand, almost all disease and toxins are countered by this method, deposited into waste sacs in tentacles and often combined with natural poisons when ejected.

Being stung by a hanar is almost always lethal, even without the other disgusting things they can project from said tentacles.

Consumed food is masticated by the mouths at the end of the third pair of tentacles, and crushed into paste by strong muscle contractions forcing it up the tentacles to the digestive bag organ, where it is broken down into nutrients and waste. Waste is further processed by a second organ, converting some of it to neurotoxins and the rest to a strongly acidic urea byproduct. This is eliminated via the second set of tentacles, and is combined with a glandular extract in said tentacles to provide a blinding or cloaking liquid. The pH of this urea is high enough to leave serious chemical burns in air, although it is diluted in effect in water.

Hanar communicate through a mix of pheremonal chains constructed by glands near the front of the creature and several panels of luminescence that glow in varying highly controlled patterns of UV radiation. The mechanism for this is several complex enzymes in glands buried deep within the body.

* * *

 **Hanar Senses**

Hanar do not have a sense of hearing at all, nor of smell. They ingest food from the third pair of tentacles which are tipped with small, lamprey like mouths, and according to our reports their sense of taste is very alien to our own with phrases like 'icy' or 'provoking'.

Hanar do not have eyes, and 'see' based on emissions and detection of UV scattering. Their sensory band is the edges of the skirt of flesh separating the top from the bottom, and is three-sixty degrees in coverage in a band roughly one hundred and twenty degrees high. They cannot see directly below or above them, unless they angle their entire body, but they can see everything else within a range of roughly eighty to eighty five meters.

Hanar have two other senses. The first, to detect pheromones, plays some role in their communication. This ability can also allow them to detect some species without seeing them and to easily identify people they know when up close.

The second, described as 'the keening', is a vastly disturbing ability to sense electrical fields and discharges at range in air or water. This is much more sensitive than the asari version, and even allows them to visualize circuit connections and other mechanical aspects of electrical or communications systems not using optronics.

Given that hanar do not see in conventional spectrums, most camouflage and cloaking techniques are completely useless. As they do not hear sonic and supersonic attacks are also of limited use, and their lack of smell and how they breathe means most gas attacks are equally pointless.

* * *

 **Hanar Reproduction**

Mating hanar procreate by having one penetrate the other using the two humps on the top of the hanar body to fit into the recessed spaces in the bottom of another hanar. This is a brief act, but described as faintly pleasurable.

All hanar contain egg sacs, and sexual intercourse injects sperm analogues into these. Hanar have multiple DNA sets in these eggs and in the sperm, rather than only one as most other races do, and random combinations are fertilized. Successful impregnation rates are somewhat low, but if successful can produce between seven and twenty offspring at a time.

Eggs are laid underwater in special hatching nests and take four to six weeks to mature into small-scale hanar the size of a kitten. Maturity takes roughly nine to ten years of growth.

It is worth noting that almost all reproductive sex done by hanar is engaged in by both partners – that is, one hanar will impregnate their partner and then become impregnated in term in the same event. This means a single mated pair can conceivably produce fifty offspring. Due to the highly randomized nature of hanar DNA, there is no incest taboo between siblings, only between parents and offspring. However most hanar choose mates far outside their family circle.

Hanar DNA pair chains are very finely designed and there isn't a single known genetic disease among the hanar that has ever been observed.

The deviance of some hanar with asari has been noted – hanar can initiate a much more intense linking state than most other aliens can, and have the capability to convert the tips of their first set of tentacles into, for lack of a better word, highly reactive erogenous zones.

I don't think any more information in this aspect of hanar … _biology_ is really necessary, Mr. Harper.

* * *

 **Hanar Life Span**

Hanar blooms take five years to turn into glowchildren, and those take roughly four to five years to emerge into fully adult hanar. We currently do not have any hard data on their lifespan – while many hanar have been born since the outcasts arrived on the Citadel, they have only perished due to accidents and misadventure, not old age.

Questioned on this they claim that they 'move into the light of the Enkindlers' when called, which clarifies absolutely nothing at all.

* * *

 **Hanar and biotics**

Strangely for so-called servants of the Protheans, hanar are completely incapable of using biotics. Any attempt to exposure to raw eezo, via dust, suspension or injection, either is pushed out of the body or poisons and kills the hanar.

Given how expertly they managed the drell's expression of biotics, they certainly seem well aware of how it works, often using technology or tricks to blunt and thwart asari and salarian biotics.

* * *

 **Hanar Oddities and Adaptations**

Several odd things were noted by both the salarians and Cerberus researchers. The most alarming of these was the fact that underwater a hanar is almost unstoppable. They oxygenate much more powerfully underwater, and their natural flexibility and senses make them more than capable in such an environment. Hanar can somehow equalize internal pressures with depth to a very high degree and can outdive any asari. Capable of swim speeds up to well over thirty five nautical miles an hour, they are very adept at ambush and harassment attacks.

The hanar nervous system is unable to utilize eezo in any fashion, but conversely some more esoteric biotic attacks that go after the nervous system are powerless. Their entire construction means most direct kinetic attacks do very little damage and their skin is strangely highly resistant to warpfire.

Hanar can metabolize a wide array of foods and require very little food to survive on. Combined with their rapid reproduction and many immunities, this makes them almost the perfect soldiers if you need to fight a mostly underwater foe.

I have tried and failed to produce a functional genetic sequencing for the hanar based on the limited data we have available, but I can confirm (from analysis of various hanar sea life they export as food) that they share almost no DNA or even amino acid chains with most of the sea life on Kahje. Hanar are very strongly levo in chirality but everything else on the planet is mostly bichiral.

Perhaps most maddening of all is the fact that interrogation of hanar is pointless. Hanar, very simply, do not feel pain, instead only a vaguely unpleasant sensation they can cut off at will. Hanar ignore all known truth drugs and agonists, and are not susceptible to any known forms of physical coercion. Asari like melding with hanar because the emotional links are much stronger than with other races, as well as physical sensation – but it has been noted not even the strongest bonds share any memories from the hanar side.

* * *

 **Hanar and modifications**

Hanar rarely utilize bionetics of any kind, seeing them as imperfect replacements of what the Enkindlers already made perfect. They are, however, common users of cybernetics, although they almost always install such within their bodies so they are not visible. Indeed, the repulsion device that allows ever hanar to float serenely in air and drift about is more often than not installed cybernetically.

While no hanar combat cybernetics were seen in the First Refusal War, there were scattered reports of hanar with built-in defensive systems in the second war, and rumors of hanar with implanted weapons or artificial poison deployment systems.

Many hanar have a cybernetic comms interface to translate their patterns and pheromones into spoken or written speech, notably using a very old asari dialect or drell speech rather than modern Galactic Asari Standard. Some hanar also install biotic suppressive devices within their bodies.

* * *

 **Hanar, disease and bodily disorders**

The hanar claim they are free of all disease. A search of over a hundred years of medical records on the Citadel found not a single instance of hanar admitted for anything but physical wounds. Their immune system is certainly robust (and weird), but I cannot fathom how that makes them immune to all forms of sickness.

Likewise, there aren't any known genetic afflictions that they suffer from, or even much in the way of physical or mental degradation as they age. The sole thing hanar do suffer from is systemic shock syndrome from cybernetic attachments and a surprisingly wide host of violent allergies, including ammonia, some spices (they absolutely hate cinnamon for some bizarre reason) and the like.

In terms of physical vulnerabilities, they resist heavy impacts, fire, heat, and most chemical attacks easily, and are more easily killed by cutting or slashing weapons, electricity and cold.


	5. Hanar Culture : Structure

_**A/N:** And this is certainly a thing. _

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**The Cerberus Files: Separatist Races**

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Sir,

The hanar culture is structure in such a way that I fear our understandings of cultural dynamics in most other races is useless in grasping the true form of what the hanar even see culture as.

As with many hanar terms, we are reduced to using best-fits such as 'tide-family' and 'chorus'. These terms may not express the totality of what the hanar see them as, and again when dealing with creatures this alien we may well be missing the point of why they do what they do or act in the fashions they act.

Then again, given the behavior of the hanar we can see, that may be by hanar design. As with everything else I am once again left with more questions than I have answers.

 **Cerberus Thought of the Day:** _There will never be an objective so time-critical that proper threat assessment cannot be performed first. One cannot define risk-reward without knowing the risk._ _  
_

* * *

The bits and pieces we've been able to cohere together in regards to the hanar culture require several caveats to be entertained. Like most alien filth I am forced to examine, and unlike human cultural trends, there seems a certain level of disconnect between all the pieces. These cultures are alien, true, but beside that there is a certain lack of logicality and continuity to them.

Asari blather on so dreadfully about unity, peace, and beauty and then produce monsters like the Nightwind and engage in the worst sort of mind control. Salarians put such emphasis on family and service to it, yet their key instruments – the STG – are shorn of any family contacts as the majority of them are clones. The schizophrenic turian culture, with its submission to leaders and yet wild revolts, is one more example of this trend.

Hanar, shockingly, do not follow this model – each cultural piece supports and buttresses those built atop it. The first caveat is that this sort of cultural development feels anomalous. It is too perfect, like some social scientist constructing a formal case study. The second caveat is that our viewing of hanar culture is through the lens, for the most part, of outcasts. I suspect the inhabitants of Freedom's Progress and Horizon have a far different viewpoint on human culture than the scions of the High Lords of Sol or a up-hab arcology dweller.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly – the very nature of hanar culture is that of obfuscation. In ritual and meaning, in how it acts and what links it together, it seems designed to hide and conceal. Much as with salarian art, we must ask ourselves if we are seeing what we should or merely the smoke that obscures it.

* * *

 **Cultural Basics : the tide-family**

A hanar 'family' is an abstracted construct that seems somewhat diffident and shorn of what most humans would see as 'family'. Most hanar reproductive results are raised in solitude by single mated pairs. Such offspring then go forth and have their own children. Given that all resources are pooled and everyone acts in unison, one could argue that the economic limits that shape families in other species do not exist. Further more, the hanar lack of gender sexuality and the tendency towards communal child rearing make the conventional 'family' difficult to identify.

However, in some cases, large groups of mated pairs will form into something they call a Float-tide. The purpose of this appears to be to enable a sort of group parentage for a large amount of offspring, tutoring them in a specific field – usually religious garbage, but also technical skills. This is the only education form known to us among hanar – most hanar are not trained as such and independently pursue whatever skills take their fancy.

These Float-tide families seem to form in local areas. For example the Citadel community has an Engineering Float-tide, a medical Float-tide, etc, and the Vabo colony has a separate Engineering float-tide, and so forth. Based on observation and discussion most float-tides are organized on a colony level – or on the home world, per large city area.

All offspring from a float-tide are also trained in the art they pursue, and all such teaching is done only through the hanar specific communication methods – nothing is ever recorded on a computer device, or on any form of media other races could read.

Some float-tides are esoteric (the Council group has one devoted to 'understanding the poetry' of each race, while the Vabo group literally has one that is responsible for working with Fornax, filthy creatures) and others are pragmatic, but what strikes me as interesting is that these groups are not always permanent. Once a need no longer exists, they simply fall apart and the members go off and o their own thing again.

A float-tide is tied together by a special sort of name, a prefix of sorts. Priests are Ascended, engineers are Illuminated, artists are Promulgated, and so forth.

* * *

 **Cultural Basics : names**

Hanar apparently consider names to be of large-scale importance. All hanar have three names – a 'declared name', which is usually bestowed upon them by their contemporaries, a 'vouchsafe name', which is a name used in private among hanar, and a 'soul name', which is supposedly the core of the hanar's very existence and is rarely if ever shared.

The most famous of the hanar outcasts, Delanyder the Indulgent, is known by Delan for short, but this is only his declared name. Most declared names include both a name (usually some sort of pun) and a title. Delanyder's name in hanar is some kind of obscure linguistic quirk that also means one who gets inebriated often. And Delan is indeed known for imbibing many alcoholic substances and acting even sillier (if that is even possible) than most hanar do.

Yet one interesting thing about such declared names is that they seem almost always to be a negative, or an implied slight. The vouchsafe name is supposedly a better insight into the character of the hanar. We only know of one hanar's vouchsafed name. The hanar publicly known as Ryvender the Dismissive is called Uylthanar. The vouchsafed name in this case means 'wistful remembrance', while his public persona is one who seems to be uncaring of hanar issues in preference for learning about alien art.

Obtaining such names requires a great deal of effort – and specialized equipment to record hanar communications, and preferably an expert at linguistics. All of this must be done via remote surveillance and rarely if ever is worth the actual cost, but it can be done. What remains somewhat confusing is the exact significance of being trusted with such names. In some cases people who have known hanar for years are not told, while a stranger is given the name after a single important conversation.

Soulnames, on the other hand, are rarely ever shared with even mated partners. From what I've figured out, the hanar believe a being who possesses their soulname can command them, and that the Enkindlers 'brought out the light of the hanar' by giving the first hanar their soul names.

Normally I would dismiss this as the worst sort of shamanistic, primitivist woo. (indeed, I am sorely tempted to do so anyway.) However, the STG expended serious effort to obtain details and methodologies to find these names, and their notes indicate that hanar can actually be convinced to speak of things they normally would not if one could get possession of a soul name. Assuming you need more detailed insight into hanar activities, figuring out how to get them to surrender such a tight secret seems difficult indeed.

When the STG expends a large amount of resources on something, I have found, despite my distaste for the grays, that they are usually on point.

* * *

 **Cultural Basics: Enkindlers and Religion**

As no doubt everyone knows, the hanar venerate the Protheans, dubbing them Enkindlers and claiming they are the direct servants of their masters and creators. Yet the Enkindler religion is unlike any other I have ever studied.

Most religions were formed in primitive times to explain unusual or mysterious phenomena or to answer certain philosophical questions. Some religions maintain behavioral requirements, moral judgments, or what have you. Almost all religions touch on an afterlife or the expression of some sort of world or existence beyond our sight.

The Enkindler religion is different in two ways. The first is that while they have scriptures and holy books, none of these are claimed by the hanar to be by the hand of the Enkindlers – only the hanar's interpretation of what is being told to them. There is no firm commandments or instructions anywhere in the religion.

Second, worship appears strangely passive. The hanar take the existence and power of their gods as a given and not a single hanar has been found to disbelieve in their divinity or that they moved on to something greater. And yet their religion offers nothing for the hanar themselves – they do not believe they are taken to the side of the Enkindlers when they die, or even that there is anything beyond death. It is a worshipful and praise-filled religion that seems to offer very little in return for such praise.

However, the truly interesting thing about Enkindler worship from a cultural standpoint is that the hanar are not in absolute lock-step in their beliefs. From what we've been able to ascertain, the main reason there are dissidents (the Citadel hanar and the hanar guesting at House Vabo) is due to differences in how the hanar think the Enkindlers see non-hanar.

The Ascendancy itself claims the Enkindlers uplifted the hanar, and the hanar alone, as the protectors and interpreters of their will and works. All Prothean technology and works are only fit in hanar hands … tentacles … whatever. Any non-hanar in possession of such are technically heretics fit only for death, and yet the Ascendancy seems oddly complacent about this. From my understanding they feel the death part does not come from the hanar but that eventually the wrath of the Enkindlers will fall upon the heretic races.

The Citadel hanar, on the other hand, particularly Delan, state that any being can come to worship and give thanks to the Enkindlers, but may or may not be accepted. They seem to think that by moving to the Citadel – which they see as somewhat heretical on their own part – that they can intercede with the Enkindlers and obtain mercy and forgiveness for the 'lesser races'. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be compassionate or patronizing, but the upshot is that the hanar on the Citadel reject that only the hanar can be the 'tools of the Enkindlers' – they claim such is presumption on the part of the Highest Chorus.

Finally, the Vabo group holds an altogether more negative view – that the other races are merely placed in the galaxy for the hanar to guide and lead, and that if they refuse to follow such leads that is their choice, and the hanar should act to understand and memorialize the races before the wrath of the Enkindlers wipes all alien life besides the hanar from the galaxy. I'm not sure how that translates to sexual orgies, drug use, and whatever other godless and sickening perversions the hanar have encouraged the already libertine Vabo into, and frankly I suspect this is yet more trolling on the part of a race of beings who has stated more than once they see us as petulant children.

There is strikingly little hard detail on how the average hanar embraces their religion. There are no temples or churches. There is no organized worship service, and each hanar tends to give praise in their own fashion. The only organs of the religion, the various groups known as Chorus, exist expressly to give praise and to investigate and maintain Prothean ruins, buildings, technology and artifacts.

The hanar religious symbol is a off-white orb swirling with multiple colors, and this can be seen in many images produced by hanar for alien consumption. Hanar have proven extremely cagey as to what this represents, especially as hanar do not see in our spectra and how they could have (or why they would have) come up with such a visual sigil strikes me as very odd.

Putting together a coherent theology from the morass of crap the hanar put forth is difficult, but I have pieced together the main parts. The Enkindlers arose, and battled with and imprisoned the Dark Gods, thus allowing life to flourish. They crafted or uplifted the hanar to watch over their works while they ascended to another plane of existence, to pierce the veil of reality into 'beyond', whatever that means. When the time is right, the Enkindlers will return and the hanar (and all other races) will be judged on how well they followed the Enkindler precepts.

The Dark Gods are seen as misguided or perhaps 'lost' – the section of the scriptures dealing with them is utterly maddening in vagueness. One thing that continues to baffle me is the reference to the grasping tentacles of both the Enkindlers and the Dark Gods. While there exists no known statuary of what Protheans looked like we have found battered Prothean VI systems, and they show a semi-humanoid form with no tentacles.

I've always wondered if the reason the hanar are so powerful is not due to them sitting on Prothean tech but that Kahje has intact _Inusannon_ ruins. Vigil has been (as usual) extremely unhelpful in this, but I find it extremely curious that he admits certain plans of his masters were never communicated to him.

Given the blasted attitude of that thing, it would not surprise me in the slightest if the Inusannon were even worse trolls than Vigil and left a pile of garbage for the hanar to confuse them.

* * *

 **Cultural Basics: the Chorii**

Deeper understanding of the hanar religion is limited because of the structure of said culture tends to mystify and obscure by nature. What we do know is that inside the Ascendancy, the hanar people themselves do not have the same sort of … outlook on what organization features a religion should have.

The hanar who emerge from Ascended tide-families form working groups, and each one is called a Chorus. Each Chorus has a specific religious purpose, although these purposes defy normative definitions and are particularly infuriating due to their ambiguous nature in both organization and duties.

Each Chorus is lead by a High Chorister, who 'unified the song of the Chorus to the pleasure of the Enkindlers, to spread their light and song.' Chorii (with one exception) always organize around a single hanar leader and the philosophy that one espouses, and continues until the number of hanar interested in it fade.

Known Chorii of long duration are the Chorus of Joyful Tidings (responsible for spreading the news of the Enkindlers to aliens via the extranet), the Chorus of Mystery and Song (responsible for neither, but instead to maintain Prothean buildings), the Chorus of Untested Waters (what passes for scientists among the hanar), the Chorus of Sorrow (in charge of the military) and the Chorus of Woe and Defiance (medical doctors and caretakers).

There are hundreds of such groups, but few remain in place more than a few hundred years at a time, and when they shift they can change the hanar outlook on elements such as medicine, entertainment and even fashion. For example, there was a Chorus of Starfalling Beauty for almost five hundred years that was a grouping of hanar who produced what they called 'somatic art', strange subsonic music with certain pheremonal connections that formed the basic of most known hanar art. This dissolved suddenly to be replaced with the Chorus of Unseen Grasping, which is apparently the hanar attempt at understanding the visual arts of aliens.

Only two Chorii do not change, the Highest Chorus (in charge of … well, the hanar themselves) and the Watchful Chorus (which apparently keeps an eye out for the Dark Gods). As these are basically the hanar government, they will be covered in the government section.

One thing stands out about all Chorii – they seem to be a combination of political club, philosophical statement, outlook on life and organizational unit. The fact that hanar can and do freely drift from Chorus to Chorus implies many hanar are not fixated on what defines them as a person, and indeed hanar who do not move around very much are seen as somehow lesser than a hanar who is a part of many different Chorii over the years.

* * *

 **Cultural Social Structure: the Ninety Four and the Outcasts**

As I stated earlier, all hanar outside of the Ascendancy come from a group of ninety-four dissident Ascended and their families who left the Ascendancy after the Second Refusal War. These are divided into two groups: the Revered Apolgetics under Delan the Indulgent, and the Glorious Enrapture of Farmas the Denied.

Delan's group settled into the Kithoi ward of the Citadel and supports itself by running a trade bazaar and offering engineering services. The group only contains a smattering of actual priests, most of the hanar raised since their arrival being engineering or trader types. Their outlook and message seems to be that the Enkindlers will be furious at aliens on the Citadel and that Delan's group hopes to gentle their anger and show the Enkindlers that other races can be useful as well.

Delan's hanar have a tendency, despite their focus on hard engineering, towards being drifty and poetic. They have given the Citadel a great deal of information about the Ascendancy, including some military information, and their view seems to be trying to avoid further Refusal Wars. These hanar rarely if ever leave the Kithoi Ward and none has ever left the Citadel for any reason since their arrival.

The primary activity of these Citadel hanar, aside from trading and some engineering services, is often examining and trying to understand non-hanar art, especially music and dance. They also expend a great deal of effort on performing outreach and trying to convince people to worship and praise the Enkindlers, and to act as a sort of ambassador for the hanar as a whole.

The other group under Farmas settled on the Vabo colony world of Trehtesi, and are altogether more revolting. Mostly poetic types, philosophers and medical doctors, these hanar have supported themselves by a mix of literal prostitution and applying their medical knowledge to House Vabo. Several revolting developments in asari bionetics for sexual uses were pioneered by these hanar.

Farmas, in particular, is the editor and publisher of Fornax, the alien sexual extranet magazine that encourages aliens to breed with different alien species. Most of the hanar in Farmas' group are often seen with various House Vabo members, and the resurgence of the Dreaming Dancer sexual cult in Vabo space is mostly due to this group of hanar.

Without resorting to utterly sordid details, the openly stated goal of the Glorious Enrapture is to indulge in pleasure of all kinds. And the depths of this depravity have no seeming bounds, as more than a dozen House Vabo members have literally _died_ from overindulgence – overdoses on drugs, exhaustion from less savory activities, and the like. Due to the near constant level of what is occurring on the House Vabo estates overrun with hanar the asari there have grown in numbers from less than three hundred to over nine hundred in less than a hundred years.

Vabo was already … _sick_ … even by the standards of most asari, but Farmas appears to delight in subjugating and corrupting them further, which has now reached the point where every single Vabo house member and lesser house member is required to have a hanar 'companion'. That nine maidens have died of maiden-stage pregnancy complications hasn't stopped this at all. Can't say I'm sorry for the blue sluts, if they could keep their fucking legs closed this sort of thing wouldn't be happening.

Then again, I suppose 'chaste asari' is another thing I can toss into the pile of Things That Will Never Be, like a moral salarian or a vorcha chemist.

I remain baffled as to exactly what in the hell Farmas is doing this for (aside from the obvious), as unlike the group on the Citadel his hanar don't bother talking much about the Enkindlers. Many of them have highly adaptive translation software done in modern asari and speak in a more direct manner than Ascendancy or Citadel Hanar. Most of what they focus on is either sexual experimentation (including cyberware development and drugs) or in linguistics.

These hanar are also more mobile, having traveled widely within the Asari Republic. Two are on Omega in the court of Aria, and one known as Varmius the Unwise has been seen with Aish Ashland on multiple occasions.

Again, I am glad Pel is not writing any part of this report. I would say that perhaps these hanar are using sexual depravity as some method to disguise their true goals – spying, or changing a public image of hanar. I really cannot say.

What is alarming, however, is that house Vabo has become an increasingly strident voice in suggesting that the Hanar Ascendancy should be allowed to examine restricted Prothean artifacts or sites. The Vabo made a statement several months back wondering why the human government was so restrictive in allowing access to the Mars Archives. It is possible that Farmas group is actually some kind of deep cover movement to breach the security around Prothean sites the Ascendancy does not have access to.

Which in turn makes me question the validity of Delan's group as well. What motives would drive a tiny subsection of hanar to live far away from their kin, even while maintaining good relations with them? Is this some cultural breach and the way Delan and Farmas are acting genuine?


	6. Hanar Culture : Expression

_**A/N:** I swear sometimes this stuff just writes itself.  
_

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Sir,

I would like to request a larger allowance for painkillers, and perhaps a wet-team to take out whatever lunatic gave the hanar the idea to attempt music.

 **Cerberus Thought of the Day:** _The wisest act is not to act without the absolute need to act. The best defense is a good offense only if you can actually succeed with said offense...otherwise you simply sacrifice yourself for nothing._ _  
_

* * *

The … finer details of hanar culture, such as they are, continue the usual trend of making no sense _whatsoever_.

I am slowly growing to despise this species almost as much as I do asari, if only for the maddening circularities of their behavior. I have spent twice as much time researching incidents and trying to draw conclusions and then having to remove it all due to the fact that their culture is as much whim as it is framework as I have in finding hard facts.

Delving into the aspects of what makes up 'culture' to things that cannot see or hear is … not calming for the nerves. As ridiculous as that may sound, you'll soon see why.

* * *

 **Hanar Culture: 'music'**

What a damnable insult to the word music.

As I believe I mentioned in the physiological makeup, the hanar do not have a sense of hearing. They can certainly feel sonic vibrations, of course, but they have no organ dedicated to translating such vibrations into nerve data. As such (or perhaps in spite of such) the hanar expressed a great deal of interest in alien music and have been studying it above all other aspects of alien races for centuries.

One wonders just what kind of minds seek to explore that they cannot even grasp. It is as if you tried to describe color to a man who could never see, or Beethooven to a person deaf from birth. And yet they have ... by some measure ... succeeded in this task.

Roughly fifteen years ago a Vabo hanar known as Wathrea the Unseen began attempting to code up a modification of the hanar translations program that converts their UV luminescence and contact pheremonal communications into speech or text. After several years he came up with … something that the hanar claim is 'the call of the Enkindlers'.

I have never heard anything as terrifying in my life. The howl of insane Nightwind lunatics, the subsonic whip-boom of kinetic bombardment, the growling laughter of that yahg we had contained – nothing can compare to the psychotic sonic cacophony this _music_ entails.

The screaming of a thousand damned souls calling out in futility and sorrow overlain with broken sub-harmonics low enough to vibrate your entire skeleton, punctuated with 'notes' that somehow manage to produce visual effects – flashes of light, or dizziness. If there are words in this morass of hellish spew, neither human ears nor human sanity would be able to make them out.

Somehow this produced an almost imperialist, bombastic tone, a brazen trumpet that sends goose-flesh over the body. I am not in exaggeration here – Agent Brooks, a woman so cold-blooded she murdered her own mother – was utterly unnerved by it, and Kai Leng very nearly bolted in fear. _Leng,_ a man so bloodless and devoid of fear that he laughed at the concept of fighting a yahg with nothing more than his sword, felt terror.

The hanar claim this is yet more evidence we 'lesser races' are not ready for the glory of the Enkindlers. I have a very hard time believing any Prothean or _any thing_ we can even think of could come up with a sonic assault of that nature.

Hanar 'harpists', as they style themselves, work an instrument that looks like a sort of keyboard with a cybernetic 'mask' that goes over the front of their bodies, and they play with manipulations of tentacles and various bursts of UV light and pheromones. The sonic vibrations of this 'music' and the display UV and pheremonal resonances can be also picked up by other hanar, who seem to find this nightmare musical choir fucking relaxing or amusing.

Hanar show deep interest in human, salarian and asari music, but very little in turian, batarian or what passes for elcor music. They have attempted to 'transcribe' some normal music into their versions – the Paen of the Solguard came out sounding like someone murdering an arcology one by one via chainsaws and hot wax, while only turian song rendered, Death Comes to All, was enough to make even the turians shudder.

Hanar have a peculiar viewpoint on such creations, claiming that they strip the layers from the music and expose its 'soul'. The asari Atherion, it must be said, retains a shadow of its ghostly and poly-tonal chords under such treatment, and the hanar most often explore and play with that.

Recording of such sounds, curiously enough, have no such deleterious effects – only when played live is the music so horrific. Listening to it on recordings merely sounds like someone gave a band of vorcha some particularly badly tuned musical instruments with barbecue sauce on them and said they were snacks.

* * *

 **Hanar Culture : Art**

After being exposed to the violation of my being that was hanar music, I admit a high level of trepidation in dealing with hanar art. Luckily, it is much less damaging to the ear. And eye.

Most art is done in hanging sheets of cloth with UV reactive patterns upon them, displayed in varying heights and with certain textures, pheremonal attachments and 'tastes' applied. Hanar experience these by drifting slowly through them, letting said cloths slowly drape and drag over them before moving free to the next one.

To the human eye, unaided, they simply look for all the world like hanging bed sheets. The point of such art, I am told, is to help the hanar create an image or a concept in their mind's eye and to experience certain emotional states from it.

Hanar also work their art into more tangible forms. Sculptures are common, favoring highly geometric and intricately layered patterns in metalwork of all kinds, and in strange shapes – swirling waves, curls of metal or cloth like seashells, cloud-like projections from surfaces in furniture – in the physical sense.

As hanar do not see colors, there is no real coloration to anything they use – most of it takes on a dull silvery or garish bright purplish shade. In terms of UV they can apparently shade how much UV reflectivity some art items have, giving variations in 'texture'. Only Leng, with his cybereyes, was able to view these, and I will quote him:

"There is a certain wrongness in this display, as if distance itself is playing false. An interesting visual trick, one best purposed on armor or something else to fool the eye in close combat."

The other form of hanar art typically seen is coral-like growths. The hanar tend to these in the same way some men trim bonsai trees, cultivating them into fantastical shapes. The 'life-rock', as the hanar call it, is apparently what most hanar structures on their colony worlds is sheathed in, and it is often seen in the hanar aquatic dwellings on the Citadel. Many visitors to Delan's emporium are often awestruck by the mass-effect supported ceiling of liquid water that is thickly filled with this coral, shaped carefully into a pictorial display of the journey of the Citadel Hanar (in UV, of course – normal vision only sees shapes of coral and the vague hint of what might be a Citadel-shape in the middle).

* * *

 **Hanar Culture : Entertainment**

Hanar have their own forms of gaming, mostly consisting of what appears to be board game-like gatherings of up to a dozen players. These board games have some poorly explained religious significance, and an almost ritualistic feel to them. The rules and point of such games are not something we took time to explore.

Hanar have modified and programmed some haptic systems to display in high-def UV emissions and thus can take part in viewing what must be highly distorted images from the extranet, and are often found on it, posting various things of interest. Hanar have also coded interfaces for some entertainment software such as games and the like, although few indulge in such.

Hanar have a wide variety of water-sports, all of which are team based, and see hunting for sea-life as a recreational sport as well. Watching a tide of hanar tear apart the most fearsome sea-life on Thessia in mere seconds gives one pause at the idea they they are 'helpless jellies'.

Hanar are surprisingly excellent shots with small arms such as pistols and SMGs and can often be found firing such at various ranges, sometimes using four such weapons at one time. Their UV-based sight does not extend very far, but within they they show a high degree of accuracy.

Oddly enough hanar are both masterful cooks and above average producers of alcoholic beverages. Cooking is seen as a group endeavor, and almost all hanar enjoy communal food preparation, sometimes mixing this with other forms of entertainment.

Most other forms of hanar entertainment seem to vary between the Vabo and Citadel communities – the Vabo hanar mostly entertain themselves through debauchery – sexual, chemical, and increasingly dangerous stunts – while Citadel hanar display at least a modicum of restraint and propriety and have more sedate interests such as coral-carving, 'music' or literature.

Hanar literature – particularly poetry – is a highlight of their culture. The hanar feel that our 'sound languages' are clumsy and unwieldy, and thus pride themselves on communicating very clearly and properly. Hanar translation software is often exquisite in nature, and even the most disgraceful hanar ends up sounding like a master voice artist giving an award speech.

Most hanar poetry is about concepts, emotions, and states of being, but some of it – the so-called 'chants of remorse' – are oddly mournful poems, filled with strikingly evocative verbal images and usually somewhat fatalistic in tone. Hanar will argue and debate for days on the proper use of a single word in such constructions, but are reluctant to explain their importance.

Hanar blooms are too young to do much of anything, but glow-children are well known for their insatiable curiosity and awe of almost anything. It is hardly unusual to see a pack of glow-children trailing after some poor benighted traveler on the Citadel asking for stories. They are fearless and direct, and have a preference for asking highly troubling questions.

Some of these questions make me worry. A glow-child during our observation of the group on the Citadel floated over and asked Brooks why she felt like a 'mask over a mask, all the way down'. Given the nature of Brooks, that is perhaps the most chillingly apt description of her I have ever encountered.

Curious, I asked the glow-child in simple language what it through of Leng and myself. Leng it described as a pool of black water with sharp edges to keep away anyone from drinking from it, and myself as a cracked pillar, elegant and stately but sagging under the weight of black coral moss.

Adult hanar claim such proclamations are merely immature silliness. I have to wonder.

* * *

 **Hanar Culture : Tourism, Events, and Holidays**

The maddeningly inexact nature of some hanar best-fit words often leads to troubling perceptions. Both the Vabo and Citadel hanar seem to indicate in statements that their entire sojourn away from the Ascendancy is a mix of rebellion and tourist holiday, as if over a century is of no moment.

While asari may not find that alarming, I certainly do.

Very little is known about how often hanar in the Ascendancy itself travel – Citadel hanar tend not to do so, while Vabo hanar travel widely and frequently (although oddly enough almost never to the Citadel). Certainly no Ascendancy hanar travel outside of the borders of their space except on specific pilgrimages to deal with Protehan ruins or studies of such.

The hanar have at least three 'holy days' where they retreat to their private aquatic quarters to meditate and commune with their gods, they claim. There is also a week in March that the hanar call the Horns of Birthing, where most hanar undertake mating efforts.

Hanar do not vouchsafe very much at all about the nature of these holy days, and are surprisingly secretive and defensive about what exactly they do, or what they are being celebrated for. If they are indeed spies, perhaps this time is when they collate their reports for transmission back to the Ascendancy, but many hanar seem troubled and darker of mood for a few days after each event, which makes no sense if this is just tradecraft.

* * *

 **Hanar Language:**

Hanar language is comprised mainly of two elements : a visual element done with UV luminescence patterns and flashes, known as lightspeak, and touch-type pheremonal chain transfer done skin to skin, known as deepspeak.

Deepspeak is mostly a language, as I understand it, of emotions, sensations, feelings, while technical concepts, declarations, questions and more rigid concepts are done with lightspeak. Most translation suites the hanar have will translate both, but hanar can always talk 'privately' via simply touching a tentacle to another hanar and using deepspeak.

In the Second Refusal War, the asari attempted to reverse engineer methods to 'jam' or 'cloud' hanar pheremonal communications after autopsies of hanar corpses. They developed several gas discharge grenades that combined a UV-flashbang with chemical binding and other compounds to impede such communications. Based on the reports, these worked very effectively against hanar above water, but were of no use underwater.

Hanar language is extremely complex, with 'tiers of formality' that have different subject-verb-object tenses, including some extremely strange constructs. Hanar almost always refer to themselves in the third person as 'this one' or 'this being', only deviating from this in certain religious proclamations.

It is suspected that the hanar UV flash lightspeak language has a much greater depth than was communicated to the valkhana, as some alien-designed interpretive software packages have still been unable to translate almost a full fourth of the UV-patterns the hanar use.

* * *

 **Hanar Culture : Philosophical Drifts**

When you have a group of absent-minded philosopher-priests who spout poetry all day, one must by force cover the nature of said philosophies.

As I understand it (after an _extremely_ aggravating conversation with a hanar), there are five major (and a multitude of minor) schools of philosophical belief in hanar culture. These are called (fittingly) drifts, and it is my understanding that they all share the same ultimate goal of defining what the Enkindler expect of hanar, in terms of how they act and react.

Human philosophical schools are a way to try to identify root causes – the why. Asari philosophy tends to rotate more around the why-nots and why-shoulds, and the wheel philosophy of the salarians ignores why for when. Turian philosophy, if you wish to demean the word with such things, is mostly structured around the nature of duty versus some variable, and if said variable it worth altering the view of duty for or not.

Hanar drifts, on the other hand, ignore how, why, when, and what to ask a question none of the other races do – what point of view does one stand at to even ask such questions. If I understand it correctly, the hanar feel that a being cannot possibly understand the 'why' of anything if they are not in the proper position to grasp the answer.

The primary drift most hanar ascribe to is a mix of human phenomenalism and salarian wheel-review, a sort of directed approach that only appraises what can be measured, detected, and defined by physical laws. Calling themselves Literalist Waters, they espouse an almost agnostic set of beliefs in any material concept that they cannot fully understand. They attempt to quantify and qualify all thoughts, all assumptions, and measure it against the exacting declaration of the Enkindlers and their own knowledge to determine 'truth'.

Opposed to this (and the drift most Citadel hanar avow) is the Unseen Form. It strongly resembles the noumenon theories and philosophies of Kant, mixed with some of the 'spirits unseen' type rubbish thrown into some turian religious beliefs. Unlike the Literalist Waters, who see the Enkindlers as powerful physical concepts and the arbiters of all hard truth, the Unseen Form views Enkindlers as metaphysical concepts who have evolved past mere 'existence' on a physical level. They measure things based on their impact in the 'unseen world' of emotions, interactions, politics, culture and perception. They claim that perception is not reality, but that reality defines perception – that what we are allowed to understand by the blinders of our existence and form in turn limits what we CAN understand.

The third drift, Crushing Embrace of the Depths, is something that I gather is mostly embraced by the Ascendancy military forces. The best way to describe it would be some mix of Stoicism, manifest destiny and predestination. The outlook of this drift it that the Enkindlers have already determined how things end and are merely measuring how the hanar cleave to or drift from their precepts, and how well the hanar understand the nature of reality. Crushing Embrace of the Depths is full of imagery and wording about diving too deep in the pursuit of things one is never expected – or even equipped – to deal with, and the avoidance of believing in free will. One thing stands out – the philosophy basically states the hanar cannot be defeated, and may explain why hanar morale even when badly outnumbered is so high.

The hanar of the Citadel refused to speak of the fourth Drift, but the Vabo Group has already done so on the extranet. Known as Searing Sunlight, it is the embrace of what sounds like ultimate hedonism mixed with a touch of certain metaphysical constructs. They seek what they call the underlying 'thing', the pulse of life itself. They experiment with all manner of perversions because only through excess and exposure can one measure one's limits, and only through knowing said limits can one discover what is forbidden. The Searing Sunlight has taken on some aspects of siari over the years, including an ideal that the Enkindlers experience 'reality' through the travails and triumphs of those who worship them.

The final Drift is probably the most upsetting, and is something we only discovered from the valkhana and from bits of STG research. It is called, curiously enough, the Darkness Unbreached. From what little I gather of this philosophy, it is an exploration of the physical in pursuit not of enlightenment but … almost anti-enlightenment, a blinding of understanding and dulling of perceptions to avoid something only hinted at.

Many other drifts exist, and most of them have changed either significantly or entirely over time, but Darkness Unbreached has not been altered in over ten thousand years. Few hanar take up its precepts, and those who do tend towards becoming inwards looking, secretive, and obsessed with very strange things – mapping technology, high energy scanning, exploration of primitive cultures, gathering stories of 'monsters' and the like. The only hanar willing to speak of Darkness Unbreached was Delan himself, to one of our cut-out agents, and his words were fairly simple: "Darkness Unbreached, in the mind of this one, is that which we turn to when the answers we have obtained cannot be endured any further. This one would suggest that there are doors better left unopened, but if one must use said door then it is only courtesy to close it after you are done."

Normally, I would dismiss this as more neo-mystical crystals and lights garbage like the rest of the Enkindler claptrap, but unlike the other drifts Darkness Unbreached is hidden. Hanar do not like to speak about it, and suggest that studying it leads a person into place they are not prepared to go. At least one cultural anthropologist, a salarian who was also a Wheel Priest, attempted to look into this about sixty years back, and after two years of research immolated himself in the egg chamber of his own family, not only killing himself but destroying most of the eggs of the clan after murdering all the dalatrasses of his smallish clan.

Given how salarians look at the future of their families, and their dalatrasses, this does not sound like overwrought researching snapping and going postal. It only makes sense in salarian terms if he was trying to protect his family from some grim fate the Wheel showed him.

* * *

 **Hanar Death Rites:**

When hanar die violently (as none have died of old age or disease of any kind) the hanar community will gather together, tell stories and poems about him for a day, and then ceremoniously get rid of the body (either handing it off to Keepers or dumping it in the sea). From the hanar's point of view, the death of a hanar is a sign they were not in alignment with the Enkindlers.


	7. Hanar 'Government'

_**A/N:** I would make a 'you jelly' joke here, but I'm too sleepy. Much of this is adapted from various aspects of the Harappan Indus civilization and certain theories on post-scarcity neo-anarchy.  
_

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Sir,

The hanar government is mostly opaque to us, and I apologize for the lack of hard details in this section. Recovering much actionable intelligence on the government is difficult because of its acephalous nature, mutile form, and lack of practical government organs.

It is possible that this is all merely some kind of sideshow, concealing the real hanar leadership. Certainly it is ridiculous enough to pass as a circus.

 **Cerberus Thought of the Day:** _There is never such a thing as 'too much gun'._ _  
_

* * *

Any in-depth investigation of the hanar government, such as it is, immediately reveals one simple fact: this is, for the most part, a relatively stateless society.

I would think that every alien culture, as well as humans, have experienced stateless societies – but one of the definitive hallmarks of what we tend to call civilization is the evolution of requisite social structures to allow urbanization and centralization of functional control. The primitive tribe/clan groupings one sees in humans, asari, and turians all gave way to more centralized authority figures.

The hanar, very simply, either have no authority figures or lay such authority in the hands of their Enkindler gods. This makes for an utterly frustrating system of 'government', one that does not fit most profiles and where all the normal rules and levers of power are strewn about uselessly.

I am beginning to think I may hate hanar more than asari, if only for their maddening circularity and baffling inconsistencies! And I begin to see the wisdom of lumping them in with drell and vorcha - such a stateless society is indeed much akin to drell tribes and vorcha packs in some ways.

* * *

 **Hanar Government Structures**

The hanar apparently believe that all hanar are equal under the Enkindlers. As I have already said, property is communal, residence is free, work is optional. Money is something hanar only worry about or accumulate for interactions with the drell and other aliens, not among themselves. They do not act against one another, so there is almost no crime. Without property, there is no need for zoning; without an economy or colonization, no need for ministries to oversee such.

As such, their government is shorn of many of the elements we would expect to see. The only people in it are chosen randomly, either from the priesthood or from the general population. Every hanar, regardless of office, spends a decade in service, and then at least two decades resting. There are no elections, and no one volunteers – the computers select and the hanar in question serves. Such service is looked upon as a burden rather than a privilege, and when not acting in the name of whatever office they hold such hanar act as any other hanar would.

There is no 'capital' – while Kahje is the homeworld and the most developed of their colonies, it shows no influence over other colonies, and there is no central government district. Every Chorus simply operates out of their own homes, using telecast and other communications links. The rare need for 'formal' communication with outsiders is handled from the Temple of Light on Kahje.

As there is no money, there is no taxation. Their economy is bewildering, with various Chorii forming as needed to assess what has to be done and then setting out to do it. There are no government regulations, yet everything – literally everything – is manufactured to precise limits, planned with exacting focus, and there are never conflicts over issues such as zoning, or property use.

Ultimately, the only form of organization are these various Chorii, who make recommendations and little else. Only the Highest Chorus has any real influence across the entire species, and even then ninety-five percent of what they put out is religious guidance and textual analysis, not governance. The hanar language does not, it should be noted, have the words for governance.

Or for that matter, _ambition_.

* * *

 **The Highest Chorus**

The Highest Chorus is made up of sixteen randomly chosen priests of the Enkindlers, and meets once a month informally to discuss the 'Path of Enlightenment'. They make a very limited number of statements, which are what passes for a framework of binding, culture wide laws.

These 'laws' are rather vague, and every other matter of control is left up to small councils of Ascension. As I stated earlier, occasionally the Highest Chorus will meet to discuss things with the Citadel Council (rarely) and possibly Aria or the Batarian Emperor. The Highest did meet once and performed a mitigated conversation via commlink with the High Lords of Sol, but that was only to demand we surrender the entirety of the Mars Archives to them.

Most of the time, the Highest Chorus meets and discusses the ramifications of any new findings of Prothean ruins, and frankly does little else but gossip and discuss religion and the Enkindlers. More than three-fourths of the entire meeting is mostly centered around religious details and receiving reports from the other government Chorii – or small talk.

If any action is actually required, the Highest Chorus will give their blessing – but more often than not, the reports they get are after the fact, so such 'blessings' appear to be optional, raising the point yet again that this isn't a government as we know it.

Aside from the religious nuttery and putting together the vague 'laws' … that appears to be all the high Chorus actually does. And these laws aren't much to look at either. According to both the valkhana and our own sources, there are only five 'laws', so to speak. These laws are not actually enforced so much as respected.

The first is a limit on hanar colonies – namely, that no more can be built 'until the time is right'. The second is that all hanar shall aid all hanar in all things. The third is that all industrial production has to be conducted in orbit or on land, not in the water. The fourth basically states that the drell are free to do what they wish on their own colonies, but must obey the will of the Enkindlers when interacting with hanar.

The final law states that hanar are responsible for whatever tasks drell that serve them may be ordered to undertake, and that drell cannot be used against their own people. (I find it curious that there is no mention of using a drell against other hanar...then again, the concept may not even have occurred to them.)

Every indication is that the Chorus is receiving instruction from something or someone. There are times the Highest will meet, with no announced reason, to discuss what seems like a trivial matter, and at the end of it dispatch Remembrance Dancers or hanar military forces to some far-flung location and 'stumble upon' raiders, Prothean-site looters, or pirates seeking to pray on drell or hanar ships.

The entire concept was explained by Delan as the natural consequences of a post-scarcity economy. He claims that their technology is vast enough, and the hanar worlds rich enough, that 'need' is meaningless, and thus there is no real desire (or purpose) for an overarching government.

* * *

 **The Councils of Ascension**

On each hanar colony, the colony is 'run', if one can use that word, by a group of five hanar (again, they serve for a decade, then take two off, randomly chosen). The main purpose of these councils is to devise any needed local guidelines – 'laws' is too strong a concept.

These groups will meet regularly to plan buildings and other public necessities, with volunteers joining up at the announcements in return for, at the end of whatever is being built, constructed, or repaired, a nice banquet and – and this was nearly enough to break my sanity – woolen or silken scarves, from Earth.

The … sheer idiocy of such a thing only makes the fact that the few images of hanar underwater colonies we have look quite impressive indeed, and yet were apparently built by little more than the hanar equivalent of paying your layabout brother-in-law and his friends in beer to move your stuff into a new arcology complex.

The valkhana left detailed video and recorded messages about how the hanar were quite able to work twenty-hours work days for weeks on end when they labored to save the drell species. No hanar asked for (or would accept) recompense for this.

I'm sure some empty headed neo-Marxist living on his daddy's income will no doubt see this as admirable. Yet consider – these Councils answer to no one, yet colonies across hundred of light-years with only scattered communication are fully capable of erecting a series of fueling bases and supply stops for the hanar fleet – without the Chorus of Sorrow or the High Chorus asking.

This is not a post-scarcity economy. This is something else, something that does not add up. Ultimately, the only way to figure out exactly how this works is through direct observation.

Unfortunately, penetrating a hanar colony is effectively impossible. They are all underwater, which as you can imagine is not a popular choice for drell – and there simply are no other beings beside hanar allowed in. The STG has made attempts with drones mocked up to look like hanar with no success.

* * *

 **The Chorus of Sorrow**

Our understanding of the hanar military is, for the most part, covered in the military section. The group of hanar who command it, the Chorus of Sorrow, are slightly different than other Chorii.

Hanar are apparently selected at birth to either be a priest, a soldier, or a civilian. They do not change their jobs during their lifetime, and thus a hanar soldier can be very well trained indeed. They do not have any kind of rank system, rather a simple rating that describes how well the hanar is educated in their various military fields.

The Chorus of Sorrow is composed of ten military hanar with the highest ratings in the six military fields (above water combat, navigation, combat engineering, underwater combat, spaceship operations and strategy). The descriptions I have seems less like a group of admirals, and more like a wardroom of very senior, very skilled warrant officers.

Curiously, the Chorus of Sorrow does not answer to (or take orders from) the Highest Chorus, or the local Councils. Instead, they operate strictly on the results of wide-range scouting missions around the border and reports of invaders from the Sympathy or their drell associates.

The Chorus of Sorrow dislike war, according to most Citadel hanar. They feel it is brutal, ugly, and a waste of energy in the pursuit of the destruction of beauty and harmony. That being said, if killing must be done, the hanar do so in a fashion that always seriously shakes the confidence and bravery of those who inevitably lose against them and reflect the glory and power of their Enkindler gods.

The military command structure is … absolutely bizarre. The Chorus dispatches its orders to one of the five Hanar fleets via a group of hanar known as the Heralds. Heralds are given extremely fast, highly stealthy and very well armed picket/scout ships and move between the fleets and the seat of the Chorus of Sorrow, aboard the orbital battle-station that protects Kahje itself.

No orders are ever, for any reason, transmitted. This makes having the fleets work in tandem very difficult, but it also means the hanar simply can't be predicted in a military sense. The Chorus of Sorrow spends most of its time planning war-games for any conceivable attack and updating the fleet commanders on what to do in such a case – no orders or coordination are needed when everyone already knows their role.

Given the fact that no hanar colonies are in systems with relays, and all relays leading within their territory are in heavily defended drell systems, the hanar will almost always be ready for a fight before it ever gets close to reaching them. Stealth, given the long FTL trips required to get to any hanar colony, is utterly impossible – and it reduces heat endurance and the ability to retreat as well. (Much of the heavy loses in the Second Refusal War was due to turian ships overextending, and having too much charge to fall back into FTL and no where to dump said charge.)

* * *

 **The Watchful Chorus**

Given the lack of traditional government structures, the fact that the hanar have a group devoted to intelligence gathering is actually quite surprising.

Yet again, the ultimate execution of this branch of 'government' raises only more questions. The Watchful Chorus is a group of hanar (the exact number seems to vary) who each have sizable staffs of Remembrance Dancers and other drell support personnel. The major duty of these forces is not, as one might expect, to gather intelligence on threats.

They spend the bulk of their time searching for Prothean ruins, or infiltrating known sites to gather useful information. The actions of the Watchful Chorus fall into intelligence gathering because quite often these information gathering ops involve complex penetrations of Council Races or the Alliance.

The drell used by the Watchful Chorus are generally extremely competent operators, often using other aliens – mercenaries, hired thugs, or bribed personnel – to gain access.

Most of what the Watchful Chorus focuses on aside from Prothean ruins is scouting water worlds. It is clear such operations are looking for something, but they are very tight-lipped about what that might be.

The group itself is a mix of religious, military and civilian hanar, who meet at least four times a year to discuss findings and make plans for future searches and acquisitions.

Very, very rarely will the Watchful Chorus dispatch limited forces (usually under the request of the Chorus of Sorrow) to investigate sites within the hanar territories themselves, usually doing so when looters have evaded the border patrols.

Finally, although it is only vaguely alluded to, the Watchful Chorus keeps a lookout for the poorly defined 'Dark Gods'. What exactly this entails is still unknown.

* * *

 **The Illuminated Speakers**

For many years, until the existence of the Highest Chorus was known, it was often thought this group was the leaders of the hanar. The Illuminated Speakers are a group of religious hanar that meet on Kahje once a year. Each hanar colony sends two, and Kahje itself hosts five.

Any communication with outsiders that is not done by the Highest Chorus is handled by the Speakers, who are also responsible for spreading hanar religious documentation over the extranet and those truly terrible infomercial packets that clog TTL lines.

The stated purpose of the Speakers is to 'give voice to the multitude' – yet the only thing they tend to discuss when they meet are inane things – what kinds of fish to import from the salarians, what styles of human scarf go best with certain UV markings on one's hide, that sort of thing. Each Speaker only serves for one or at the most two meetings.

The Speakers do meet inside the Temple of Light on Kahje and what they discuss there, with the Highest Chorus, is a blank unknown. The Speakers have, on occasion, met and discussed various issues with the Chorus of Sorrow and the various Councils on hanar colonies, so this may be the hanar equivalent of Parliament.

One or two Speakers will usually be the ones making any formal communications between the Hanar Ascendancy and alien corporations, rather than the High Chorus. These are also the hanar who are most often seen outside of hanar space (with the obvious exception of the outcasts).

* * *

 **The Sympathy**

The only 'real' governmental organization that we can identify, the hanar Sympathy is a mix of emergency medical response team, SWAT team, crime scene tech, and internal security force. It is composed of a mix of various hanar, who each provide different skills.

The Sympathy operates on a colony level, mostly acting to mediate in the rare occurrence of discord between two hanar, and as medical providers. Disaster relief also falls under their mandate.

The Sympathy also acts as police on the single 'open' trade port at Nathar, above the water, where hanar allow trade ships to dock. These hanar, wearing powerful kinetic barriers and heavily armed, are the only real deterrent to crime on Nathar. They take a very dim view to any sort of violence or theft, and as they do not have jails (or courts), the Sympathy acts as both police and customs, often expelling violent visitors or simply shooting them and tossing the body into the sea.

The Sympathy also acts as first-responders whenever a hanar Prothean ruin or site is attacked by looters, and operates a sizable fleet to acts as border patrol agents and customs agents. They are firm and polite but will resort to appalling violence at the drop of a hat if aliens are uncooperative, and generally speaking shoot to kill if aliens are found anywhere inside the hanar territory besides Nathar.

* * *

 **Hanar Political Views**

Distilling the political stances of a rare that doesn't even have a real government is somewhat an exercise in semantics, yet I believe there is at least some value in doing so.

The primary divides in hanar culture mostly relate to varied interpretations of the religious texts, enough so that the primary duty of the Highest is interpretation and promulgation of analysis of said texts.

Hanar politics, therefore, is a function of how they choose to believe the Enkindlers see the universe and other alien life.

The majority of hanar are, for lack of a better term, Orthodox. These hanar follow the words of the Highest, remain in hanar space, and show a profound disinterest in alien races, cultures, and interaction. Orthodox hanar see other aliens as lesser, unguided beings fumbling in the dark, too stupid and brash to listen to the wisdom of the Enkindlers.

A smaller faction of hanar, the Reactive, are more open to alien contact, if only to expose aliens to the truth and 'beauty' of the Enkindlers. The Reactive are the hanar most involved with trading, interacting with the Traverse, and operating the trade port on Nathar.

A yet smaller faction still, the Prepared, thinks hanar are here to make an entrance and act as the soldiers of the Enkindlers when (or if) the 'Dark Gods' return. The Prepared are by and large military hanar, but can be found sprinkled around the Sympathy and the Watchful Chorus as well.

There are no real political parties – every hanar sees all three of the viewpoints above as perfectly valid. When a large number of hanar come up with a 'valid' viewpoint that cannot accommodate other viewpoints, they are outcast – like the Citadel and Vabo hanar have been.

Ultimately, the hanar government seems more like a layer of dysfunctional bureaucracy between the hanar and some ultimate, guiding force. It is likely that there is some higher group of hanar actually calling the shots, but why they feel the need to conceal themselves in this fashion is as yet unknown.


	8. Hanar Military Stuff

**A/N:** _Since I haven't shifted things up in a while, enter Brooks. She's actually pretty hard to write._

 _Retcon edit 12-10-17._

* * *

 **The Cerberus Files: Separatist Races**

* * *

 **Message Header: HELNET BEGIN ENCRYPTION STRING**

 **NEGOTIATING ARBITRAGE HEADERS…CLEAR**

 **SYSFILL 845277-SUB-ELEVEN:** _Cross check complete_

 **DOLOS-FOUR-TWO-ZERO :: BROOKS-420**

 **CREATING HANDSHAKE…ACKNOWLEDGMENT HANDSHAKE ACCEPTED**

 **BEGIN TRANSMISSION: BROOKS**

So, I finally get a chance to write up another bunch of goodness about the wonders of aliens…and it turns out to be the hanar. Like the quarians weren't bad enough? Dammit, I want to write up the drell!

Thanks, Minsta. Ass. By the way, I stole all your good liquor out of Base Moonbeam.

Getting in and out of the fringes of the Ascendancy to meet with supposedly disaffected drell is sort of like playing Russian roulette with five bullets instead of one. Rasa is still pissed we had to ditch our pinnace and will be sending you the bill, big man.

But that just illustrates what Doc M is saying. Make all the jelly jokes you want, the hanar's punch line is likely to kill you. The hanar may _seem_ silly to those who rarely interact with them, just like I may seem airheaded. But that is what they want you to think.

Dreadful creatures. The drell are much nicer, both to look at and in how they act around aliens, while hanar would have their nose up in the air if they had, you know, noses.

Oh well.

Anyway, it seems our good doctor is now busy with getting his little girl all settled into the big bad world of the Dog, and so is simply too 'occupied' to bother to finish what he started. Rasa and I have been pulling all the data anyway, so having us write it up only robs you of the opportunity to wipe the virtual spittle from the report as he froths at the mouth over asari, salarians, turians, and pretty much anything else that isn't High Human Rich Euro-Chinese male. Guh.

The hanar military, then. Yipee. Their motto : twice the fun of an icepick to the head and no messy clean up after.

 **Cerberus Thought of the Day:** _There never will be an excuse for allowing empathy to override reason._

* * *

 **Hanar Military Generalities and Mindset**

Oh, so these reports come with an outline to follow, and the system populates it in the report form? That's nice. Given how weird the hanar are, however, any kind of outline is sure to be as useful as parachutes on a space station.

Where to begin?

Okay, so: every race has their own way of looking at strategy and tactics and all that, based on how their culture made war and what not. Asari use hunting and flanking, salarians use precise strikes and chaos, turians are big on their Four Movements and big firepower, and so on. Most of these tend to fit the outlook of the race on war itself. Asari hunt for the big game – leaders, dreadnoughts, whatever. Salarians see it all as moving pieces to the correct position and then kapow! Turians just like guns, more guns, and holding you in place while they shoot you to pieces and then melee you to death.

So, they reflect on the race. And a lot of people – including old man Ezno and General Grumpytrotsky – would say this is the… oh how does he say it.

Ah.

 _[Record cessation, duration nine seconds. Sounds recorded conform to: giggling, snorting, deep breathing. Recording resumes.]_

"The quintessential essence of the nature of armed combat, written in the limbs and designs of the race." God, I can't even get that shit out without cracking up. Where did you find Petrovsky anyway, a third hand Army-Navy store?

With hanar the answer isn't so simple. I'm sure people think 'underwater jellyfish + hunter mentality = like asari,' but the two races are nothing alike (except for liking plasma bolts.)

Take all that culturalistic, defined-by-evolution framework and throw it out the window! There's two pieces of the picture you need to get the hanar : how they look at war, and how they look at us.

War, to them, is not about violence, or end results, or anything except… like an immune response. It just happens. It's organic. They don't see it as a thing unto itself.

The hanar don't use a _single_ strategy, or even a strategic set. In fact, the hanar rarely rely on anything approaching 'strategy' in the sense of a pure military action at all. They play on a level above that – moving to strike directly at the _people _ behind the fleets, the economic underpinnings that allow war to be profitable, the morale of the invaders, even the idea that military action could ever be successful. To them, warfighting has very little to do with, well, actual fighting, like I said.

The snooty drell – the valkhana – claim the hanar only have one saying for war : ensure the expected result never occurs; ensure the worst case the enemy can expect becomes foolishly optimistic; ensure the anticipation of destruction outweighs any possible benefit and maximizes the fear of death itself.

The hanar don't fight to gain territory. They don't fight due to economic issues, or political strife, or to gain new resources. They don't fight when someone pisses them off, or to demonstrate dick size. They only fight for one reason: when an outside force invades – be that a single Prothean relic hunter or the entire Citadel fleet. Like I said, it's like an immune response.

And that response only comes in one setting: _extremely_ overcooked.

Hanar ships are not the strongest in terms of damage, but that doesn't matter when they can burn through Silaris armor like it isn't even there. They have nasty ECM, a laser grid waaay more effective than GARDIAN lasers, and literal energy force shields we can't even figure out how they work. Spooky sensor tech and whack-ass FTL drives that don't even make a blueshift are just more shit to go wrong.

But all those things add up to the ultimate point: when the hammer falls, it catches you flat-footed. So when it comes to strategery and all that, they tend to go for the throat, and go big, and ignore bullshit like flanking or logistics.

The other half of the picture. How they look at us.

Most of the time, they tend to look at the fleets of other races in an amused fashion. Closest thing I could come up with is how pre-Iron Western countries looked at natives of the Americas and Africa. That isn't to say they see us as harmless – particularly in a tactical sense. Certainly they know the Citadel fleets did blow up some of their ships and wipe two colonies in the Second Refusal. But they don't feel we're any sort of existential threat, and that losses like that are… like being gored by an angry bull.

Sure it's tragic, but it's minor, and it's not like the bulls are going to unify and take you out.

The hanar have one semi-predictable tendency when it comes to military tactics – they have completely different reactions based on both offense and defense. They see them as completely separate, to the point that some ships are purely for offense and some are purely for defense.

They're also big believers in defense in depth. I've been to the trade port at Nathar, and they have about thirty orbital defense platforms each the size of a dreadnought swirling all over the place. They towed some asteroids into super-high geosynch orbits, polar and lateral, and stuffed them with weapons and hangars.

They consider Nathar 'lightly defended.' There's old footage from the last Refusal War of what the system defenses looked like on a serious colony – crazy stuff.

Now, I say the hanar have no strategy. But that's not to say they don't plan ahead. Hanar have these plans they like to think up and use, to react to situations – they hate pinning everything on 'a strategy' because it is inelegant, and by God, they simply won't have that.

To them a 'strategy' is something that locks you into a plan before you even know what you're facing. They have all these plans and wargames and possibilities plotted out and studied beforehand, and then when something shows up their VIs or whatever pull out the most applicable reactions and boom! They're off.

I get the feeling their 'high level' planning is, like I said, more about the reasons about fighting a war than actually fighting the war. That part they just sort of don't care about because they can't ever see themselves loosing. I mean, if you've got an orbital platform and you're fighting guys with Stone Age tech, how much planning do you really need?

* * *

 **Hanar Military Doctrine : Ground**

Oof, poor choice of words.

Hanar have two types of 'ground' combat – above water, and underwater. And before you go and say 'well who's stupid enough to fight them underwater' – keep in mind all their colonies are kilometers underwater.

Good luck trying that shit, and don't call me to help.

Anyway. Above ground.

They tend to rely a lot on mechanical aids and vehicles when fighting out of the water. They move slow, and while they can aim and fire like a four-armed Anne Oakley on speed, they aren't good at being able to take cover or move quickly in and out of an urban combat zone.

Don't get me wrong – a pissed off military hanar shooting you with four high-velocity SMGs and flanking you with a pack of drones is nothing to laugh at. But they don't have 'special forces,' and the average hanar trooper would be a light snack for an N7.

Except the hanar don't fight fair, so they'll bring help. Thus, expect to see lots of weird 'framework' battle-suits, drell support infantry, and vehicles.

Hanar don't bother with formation tactics much – above ground they will almost always prefer to fight defensively, tucked into excellent cover or protective bunkers and using drell troops to prevent flanking and that sort of thing.

Hanar will always attempt to set up a position where they can fall back to a body of water if things go bad, whenever they can.

One more thing: hanar have, as Doc M pointed out, no damned fear. And they don't worry much about dying, either. Push comes to shove, they're more than happy to pull kamikaze tactics that would make a Jap Solguarder green with envy.

Now, underwater, that's where they get nasty. They are masters of this sort of combat, their body allows them to jet and move in almost any direction, and they can see and detect you flawlessly. The asari have some records of the underwater combat they tried during a couple of their half-ass invasions, and it didn't end good for the blues.

They prefer attacking from above or below, use lots of concussion style explosives to shake up any kind of formations, and from what video records are available, most of their colonies are covered in coral stuff honeycombed with tunnels and defensive positions that make digging them out a nightmare.

* * *

 **Hanar Military Doctrine : Space**

Pew. Pew. Pew. Then laugh.

No, seriously.

Hanar pretty much just throw tons of ships into a line of battle, and then go to town opening up and firing. Unlike most of the weapons used by Citadel races, hanar Prism Lances can fire in a multitude of directions. Their defenses are strong enough that they can pretty much laugh off whatever gets shot at them, and trading fire with any weight of hanar ship is an exercise in stupidity, hull breaches, and teleporting sexy drell guys in your base, killing your entire crew.

It gets worse, too. Like I said, hanar divide defense and offense. So on defense, the whole goal of any hanar fleet is to kill you as fast as possible while keeping you away from the colony, dig site, or whatever it is they are protecting.

Now, on offense, they're trying to leave a message. And that message is their foot + your ass = GTFO and leave us the hell alone. They're sloppier with their targeting, and are way more willing to take damage in order to get to the target. They're not above jumping into a system, firing off a shitload of slugs at a garden world, and jetting before anyone can react.

To me, that seems a little risky – about the only tactics that can be reliably be pulled off on the hanar is turning their own trick against them and doing drive-bys of our own. But that would escalate shit even further, and no one on the Council wants that. Mainly because the last time they tried they got owned like an all you can eat buffet by a pack of starving volus.

As far as their actual ships go, they prefer mid-range stuff in terms of weight class. Half their ships are the smaller types. They only have, last time we counted, five dreadnoughts, but those are monster ships.

* * *

 **Hanar Military Doctrine : Ship Design**

All hanar ships basically look the same, regardless of size – a rounded pod section at the front, a narrow middle body that splits into two flat, lenticular sections angled at forty five degrees, and a rear section done in an arch that connects the two middle sections and houses the engines.

Digging out details of the ships performance is hard to do: much of what I've got is old records from the two Refusal Wars and bits of drone footage from hanar blowing the shit out of pirates. Still, a few things stand out.

They're really big on firepower, firing arcs, and defensive systems, and they don't care much about speed, maneuverability, or armor. The ships are pretty tough – a cruiser in the Second Refusal War took a direct hit from a dreadnought main gun and continued fighting – but repeated hits that breach their shielding can blow them up just like anybody else's ships.

The main focus of lighter ship designs is more geared towards ECM, missile defense, and scanning, rather than speed and stopping flanking. Since hanar ships can fire in pretty much every direction, flanking doesn't do much good.

Heavier ships are clearly built around bringing as much firepower to bear on as many targets as possible, while the dreadnoughts actually mostly deal killing blows to ships already weakened. Most of their weaponry also creates a ton of radiation casualties and injuries, which always makes fighting them harder.

After all, sending home a bunch of broken up ships full of maimed, crippled casualties sends a strong message.

Since no one has ever captured a hanar ship, the only information we have on them is from the reports from the Second Refusal War, where Spectres and asari war priestesses tried to storm a ship with boarding shuttles. The inside is sectioned off, with crew spaces and the like actually flooded with water. Damage control appears to be minimal, and the strike team found no recognizable medical spaces.

The rest? Who knows. According to the weirdos on the Citadel, hanar ships don't make long patrols, regularly returning to a local base for rest. They may not need medical spaces or the like. Maybe they don't even need kitchens, and just stock the water with fish or something?

That'd be cool.

* * *

 **Hanar Military Doctrine : Vehicle Design**

Hanar war vehicles are strictly used for above ground combat – no underwater vehicles were seen, which was the only asari advantage they had. Given how much the hanar improved between the first and second Refusal war, they've probably addressed this by now.

What we do know of hanar military vehicles is, like most other things, from the Second Refusal War. Hanar vehicles come in only one of two varieties – saturation bombardment vehicles that stay far behind the lines, and close-in fighting armored vehicles, which crash through enemy lines with heavy weapon emplacements for hanar soldiers to fire from.

Hanar vehicles employ heavy shielding and are all hover based craft, similar to some asari designs. Most of them incorporate packs of rapid-firing drones and the armored fighting vehicles can convert themselves into temporary strongpoints, like a mini-bunker.

Hanar use lots of automated defenses, so it shouldn't be surprising that there are hanar mechs. Most of their mechs are a trio of wheel-shapes on three axis allowing them to move in any direction instantly, with a heavy weapons mount supported in the middle. Fast and nasty, and you have to aim pretty well to actually hit the thing as most of it is empty space.

* * *

 **Hanar Military Organization**

Whoo boy.

So, hanar basically pick out glow-kids or whatever to start learning about fighting and that's all those hanar ever do. Doc M already told you about the Six Ways, or their six military skill sets.

A hanar military recruit basically spends its entire life practicing one of the Six Ways at a time. The combination of these Ways determines what branch of the hanar military it goes into, and some are never combined.

Space weapons and navigation end up in the hanar navy. Strategy (weird that they call it that) and navigation end up in naval war planning. Above water fighting and navigation end up in the vehicle corps. Combat engineering and above water fighting are infantry, and all hanar who master below water fighting are the 'defenders,' or colonial guards. Above water fighting and strategy types are called war planners.

The hanar don't have 'rank' – all hanar see other hanar as equal to them. Instead, some hanar (such as war planners) set out the plans and the hanar who fight go off and accomplish them, but a year from now the war planning guy may have moved into the infantry and the infantry grunt is now flying a starship.

Keep this in mind: you cannot expect ANYTHING from the hanar. You storm a ship and it might be crewed by hard-ass hanar battle infantry who also happen to fly a ship. You try to take out a war planner and the guy could hand you your ass because he was a colonial guard for fifty years. Assume all hanar are as good as an A1+ marine and have officer training and combat engineering skills, because most of them do!

Hanar infantry are organized into pods of sixty, each one led by their own war planner. A hundred war planners gather together to form a century, which is led by ten war planners who have each run their own pods before. Fifty Centuries are aggregated into Songs, which are the basic large-scale combat unit. Each Song has about ten or twelve pods of pure combat engineers for support.

Hanar fleets are different. Each ship is either moved into the Action Force or the Defense Force. The defense force is the fleets that patrol the border and protect the colonies. The basic patrol is a light cruiser with between ten and twenty destroyers and frigates. Five of the patrols, along with five heavy cruisers, make up a Chorustide. Between two and six of these Chorustides are assigned to every one of the hanar colonies, and another thirty or so form the customs group.

The Action Force is divided between the five dreadnoughts, and their escorts – dozens of heavy cruisers, more light cruisers, and packs of destroyers and frigates. We don't have good numbers, sorry – getting the designations was tricky enough.

Are we _sure_ we can't just… you know, murder up a few hanar to find out some of this stuff? I mean, Shepard isn't even awake yet, and the bitch isn't likely to find out.

* * *

 **Hanar Infantry Classes**

There's only a few types of hanar soldier. But most of them are equipped almost identically. Don't rely on loadouts to determine their jobs or skill level.

The standard hanar infantry layout is a very powerful kinetic barrier (bout on par with a battle-suit k-barrier), a pair of omni-shields that can expand out to a radius of six feet with a TeV of at least six thousand, two to four personal weapons, and a pair of combat drones. The omni-shields can bounce anything up to direct missile or tank fire when deployed. Weapons load varies wildly between individual hanar.

Rarely you see the heavier version of infantry. Again, you have the k-barrier, but also the hanar will wear a sort of body glove of ballistic fiber imprinted with omni-armor panels and medigel injectors. The shields remain the same, but these heavier units tend to roll with between six to fifteen combat drones, a single heavy weapon and two backup weapons. Some of the bodysuits have some kind of propulsion in them to allow the hanar to move faster above water – you almost never see these underwater.

The greenest and newest are called the Tidehatched, and typically only have one specialty, either ground or sea combat. Most of them will use pistols.

More experienced combatants, called the Raging Surf, will appear identical to Tidehatched except most will use SMGs and heavier pistols.

The rare heavy infantry types are called the Abyssals, and carry one of the three hanar heavy weapons along with a pair of shotguns. Watch out for these guys.

Keep in mind that most soldiers will have one or two drell flunkies.

Also tossed into this are their 'frameworks,' which are like battle-suits in a way. The framework is a heavy armored pod with mechanical tentacles, anchored in the middle of a spidery-walker looking thing. The pod itself is covered in omni-armor and sensors, and the top of the walker is a heavy hellstorm projector.

Now, against other battle-suits, this thing don't dance very well – it's slower than most suits, and the projector is great at taking down masses of infantry, but not so hot against armor. But what it excels at is soaking up enemy fire – according to a few reports, some of these suits jumped a heavily armed Prothean looting team on the fringes of their space. One of these suits ate THREE Kraken missiles and kept coming.

As a happy, friendly reminder, KRAKEN missiles are light ground-to-space missiles used to bring down heavy fighters and frigates.

* * *

 **Hanar Warship Classes**

The basic hanar ship layout is as follows: Patrol Boat / Gunship (what we could call a pinnace), light picket (frigate), heavy picket (destroyer), mainline ship (cruiser), assault ship (heavy cruiser), charger (battlecruiser), and bulwark (dreadnought).

As I said, some are for offense and defense. Typically, these are the same base class, but defensive focus boats will have more missiles and defenses, while offensively focused ships might have faster engines or an extra Prism Lance ring.

The gunships and patrol boats are very nasty for their size, each one packing a pair of missile racks for their heavy Moray missiles and a single Speargun turret. The light picket is a slightly upsized version of the same that also includes paired splinter-guns on each 'wing' of the ship.

Heavy pickets lose the Moray missiles, swapping them for a trio of Doomwhale torpedoes and three saturation pods of Lancet missiles.

The mainline ship, cruiser equivalent, is the first hanar ship to have the Prism Lance, a single ring of the system. It also has twin Speargun turrets and a trio of splinter-guns centerline. The assault ship mounts two Prism Lance rings, as well as a pair of Moray missile pods, and the charger adds four Doomwhale torpedo tubes and paired splinter-guns.

The bulwark ship is the heaviest ship in the hanar ranks by a fair amount, almost twice the size of an Alliance dreadnought. Five rings of the Prism lance dominate the front along with six upsized splinter-guns centerline. A dozen Speargun turrets dot the top, bottom, and both sides, while four more splinter guns on pivot mounts cover the sides and aft of the ship. Two big saturation racks of Lancet missiles take up most of the wing space, and six Doomwhale torpedo tubes are found centerline on three-sixty-degree swivel moutnts.

These are the designs as last reported in the Refusal Wars, and from observation of hanar attacking invaders and pirates, these still seem accurate, but the hanar may have made changes we have missed.

No Citadel ship can go weight-class to weight-class with a hanar ship. Their frigates can fuck up a cruiser, and their cruisers tore down several battlecruisers in the First and Second Refusal Wars.

* * *

 **Hanar Naval Combat Systems**

Here's where the fun starts.

The lightest hanar weapons are merely mass accelerators, almost identical to the ones used by Citadel races, but loaded with explosive crystalline slugs rather than metal. These have a tendency to splinter if they penetrate enemy hulls, scattering lots of shrapnel inside crew spaces. Very nasty. These are known as _splinter-guns_ , and are found on all hanar ships. They aren't any more or less effective than our own weapons, except in killing and maiming crews.

The heavy kinetic hanar weapon, usually found on heavier ships, is a two-stage mass accelerator rifled cannon, mounted in trios on a rotating bubble turret. These fire forty-five inch long kinetic 'spears' that are composed entirely of some kind of electromagnetically charge crystal that disrupts kinetic barriers similar to a phasic round. These weapons are slow firing, but even a single trio blast will ruin the day of a cruiser, as they hit as hard as the main guns of a battlecruiser. Called _Spearguns_ according to the best hanar translations we have.

Alongside this is the much-vaunted (and feared) _Prism Lance_. These are circular tracks laid out on every hanar ship, made of some sort of bluish crystal substance that glows faintly at all times and brightly when fired. The asari captured a fragment of this stuff and have been researching it for over a century and still don't even know what the shit it is.

Anyway, Prism Lances are beams of energy, blue in hue, that can lash out in a a 180-degree arc from any point on the track. They move at light-speed and can't be dodged, and the beam is some kind of coherent blast of anti-particles. As you can imagine, this is going to blow the holy hell out of anything it hits.

The burst is EXTREMELY brief – each firing is about a tenth of a second. And each ring is slow to fire, there is at least a minute, if not more, delay between each shot. That really doesn't matter, though – anything below cruiser weight hit by a Prism Lance is just gone. Not wreckage, gone.

Heavy cruisers and up can 'survive' being hit, but most of the crew is radiated to hell and back, and even dreadnought armor won't take this very well. Kinetic barriers do absolutely nothing.

The hanar missile technology is very similar to asari, using a mass effect field to disrupt a fleck of antimatter on impact. Their missiles have very good tracking and most use a laser-lock rather than emissions to track targets. Missiles have two weights – the _Lancet_ is lighter, but smaller and designed for saturation fire, while the _Moray_ is about twice as strong as a volus full mix M/AM missile, or three times the strength of the Alliance Spearfish.

The hanar torpedo is a bulky canister launched from the heavier hanar ships, that accelerates directly at the target using an FTL pulse. When it comes out of FTL it instantly explodes into a barrage of high-energy pumped X-ray lasers and a spew of super-hot plasma. This is a crew-killing weapon, it does a fair amount of damage to a ship it hits, but will maul the crew with burns and radiation. This torpedo is known as the _doomwhale_.

The hanar defensive systems are equally scary. The _laser grid_ is a series of tiny turrets that dot the entire surface of most hanar ships and can project multiple X-ray lasers in rapid arcs. The system has an effectiveness of one hundred percent at ranges beyond one light minute, and eighty five percent at knife-fighting ranges. Unlike GARDIAN systems, it can't be re-targeted to attack close-range enemy ships directly, but at all ranges it is between two and three times as effective as the best GARDIAN systems in stopping missiles and torpedoes.

The _hanar barrier system_ is not like our own kinetic shielding – it's almost like omni-armor. Projected 'solid energy' fields, these can absorb tremendous punishment and are not pierced by phasic slugs. They can actually bounce instead of just stop lighter-weight kinetic shots. They can be weakened by the use of M/AM slug ammunition or detonation barrages of torpedoes. Scans indicate the hanar also have a secondary, regular kinetic barrier system they will put up if the energy shields go down.

Salarians are trying to replicate this, but no luck so far. The hanar only pulled these out in the Second Refusal War – in the first they had strong but otherwise normal kinetic barriers.

Hanar armor is lightweight and made of some kind of self-healing metal, but is more designed to absorb rads and shock than prevent penetration.

Hanar ECM is much better than any Citadel technology, and they have some really nasty cyberwarfare suites they use in battle.

Finally, there is the _teleportal_. I can't even guess how this shit works, but it allows one-way transport between two points less than a thousand feet apart. This is mostly used by hanar to send over boarding parties…or big M/AM bombs, in at least one case. It cannot, based on all reports, move anything BACK into the hanar ship, so at least it isn't a Star Trek transporter, but it still allows some ugly boarding actions.

* * *

 **Hanar Infantry Weapons**

You'd think with all the fancy stuff they have for their ships, their weapons would be more powerful too, but most hanar weapons are very similar to some asari weapons. The main difference is that all hanar weapons use pheromonal contact points to fire the weapon, so you can't pick one up and use it.

Most hanar weapons rely only on thermal cooling – they have not started to use temporary clip heatsinks to increase their rate of fire. On the other hand, all of their stuff is designed to take in water for cooling when fighting underwater, and will fire much more rapidly than in air.

We have no idea what the hanar call their weapons, and I'm too sleepy to go look up the Alliance designations.

All hanar weapons use either conventional mass accelerators with radioactive rounds, or plasma bolt technology almost identical to that of the asari. Strange.

The hanar have two weights of pistol. The light pistol fires fragmenting rounds of radioactive material, and the heavy pistol fires a super-hot mass accelerated plasma bolt. Both are accurate and lightweight. The shape of the pistols is designed for the hanar tentacle, and both feature a sort of guard that incorporates an omni-blade for close in attack.

The hanar SMG is a selective fire weapon. One mode rapidly fires small plasma bolts, the other pushes out a literal cloud of these bolts. This isn't a very accurate weapon, but hanar can fire four of the damned things, and they can suppress an entire company like this. The SMG tends to run very hot, and has a lengthy cooldown – most hanar will alternative firing them in patterns.

The hanar shotgun again comes in two types: a heavy combat shotgun, autofiring radioactive phasic slugs, and a lighter shotgun that sprays a cone of plasma slurry with every shot. The plasma shotgun is particularly good at demolishing even heavy cover, and is often used in conjunction with drell snipers.

Hanar don't appear to use rifles of any kind that I can identify.

There are three heavy hanar weapons. The first and most famous, the prism cannon, is well known. It uses that same blue crystal that the Prism Lance does, but fires a super-hot X-ray laser burst instead of… anti-particles. (Given that this weapon is to be used in atmosphere or underwater, the reason why should be easy to grasp!)

The prism cannon's X-ray lasers will go right through most kinetic barrier systems and has a very long range. It does very heavy damage to organics, less so to heavily armored mechs and battle-suits. Hanar need four tentacles to use and fire this weapon.

The burster cannon is a small-scale splinter-gun, firing fist-sized slugs with a mass accelerator that burst into white-hot shrapnel on impact. While this doesn't do much to soldiers with full kinetic barriers, once those are down it can maim dozens of people with one shot. Combined with EMP grenades to disrupt shielding it can be nasty – and the gun has an underbarrel grenade launcher just for doing that.

The final, heaviest weapon the hanar use is the hellstorm projector. This ugly thing fires a torrent of destabilized plasma blobs that explode violently on impact, strong enough to knock a krogan over. This weapon is almost always used by defensive soldiers to break up and blunt enemy attacks. It does very good damage, but tends towards the inaccurate and over-heats very rapidly.

* * *

 **Final Thoughts**

I'm not sure what you want from this report. Minsta says I don't need to worry about it, but Rasa, myself, Leng, and Ezno have been run ragged the past year hunting up the intel for these things, so I'm kinda curious.

Whatever.

The hanar are… well, what you make them into being. If you leave them alone, for the most part they do the same. If you bring a knife, they bring a machine gun, and if you pick a fight they beat you until you cry like a child for them to stop. Simple, easy to understand rules, really.

I can understand why you might be interested in their tech, but all of it doesn't make any sense, and getting your hands on it is likely to end up with you having no hands.

I'm sure someone will say this report is unprofessional, but Rasa and I are going to GASCAR in twenty, so that's all I have. Priorities, big man.

Ciao.


	9. Hanar of Note and Creepiness

_**A/N:** Next up is the OCC Spoilers I know you've all been waiting for...but first, jellies of note!  
_

* * *

 **The Cerberus Files: Separatist Races**

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* * *

OMG! Minsta let me write another one. Happiness!

It really sucks that Helnet won't let me send graphics, big man.

So. Hanar big shots. Wow, this is gonna be a short section if you want hanar inside the Ascendancy, since they change _all. The. Freaking. Time._

Soooo...we won't do that. In honor of lil' Tiffany popping her racist-nutjob cherry and joining the Dog, I present :

 _Hanar bombed on weed of the Citadel, and that guy from Fornax who puts up all the hot drell and schemexy turian photos. _ Please please please make sure you copy Doc M on this.

On a more serious note … hanar inside the Ascendancy are very difficult to identify, since they change the Chorii every ten years and no one hanar ever speaks up. That's not to say they are interchangeable – the High Chorii of the past seven years is pretty laid back, the ones before had a hard-on for intruders and was almost hostile, and the ones before THAT were super-chummy with Aria.

But without any way of identifying these jellies, matching images to actions is tricky. I've semi-cheated by aggregating a few at the end of this report by discussing teh current Highest Chorii. Chorus. Whatever.

The ones that are famous in space outside of the Ascendancy all start out sounding nice or silly… and then turn _completely_ mindfuck scary, and those titles of theirs take on nightmarish ironic overtones. Seriously, fuck what Trellani says, we need to kill these creepypasta gasbags ASAP.

 **Cerberus Thought of the Day:** _Success is commemorated. Failure merely remembered._

* * *

 ** **Delanyder the Indulgent****

The most well known and famous of the Ninety-Four, and the perceived 'leader' of the Citadel group, Delan runs a big emporium and engineering services store in Kithoi. They sell mostly standard tech 'tweaked' for underwater operation, upgrade weapons with scary-efficient frictionless rail systems, and provide 'insight' into some Prothean tech – even doing so for the Council on occasion.

Wow. That almost sounded professional, didn't it?

Delan himself is supposedly called the Indulgent because he like to get drunk and sing poetry while wandering in the Presidium. He once serenaded a quarian couple on Pilgrimage, then gave them a half million credits and told them to go far from the 'station wrapped in the clouds of future tears and deaths , painted in the ironic corpses of a thousand cycles of victims."

Whatever that means.

Finding really hard info on Delan is more difficult than it sounds. Over the years he's been a fixture, appearing on various shows, always willing to do interviews and all that jazz. But going over it all you don't get much hard information on Delan himself, except that he's a lot cagier than he lets on.

One thing that does stand out is he's not a very good businessman, often selling his services well below what people would happily pay, and sometimes even below cost. Now, this HAS prevented anyone else from doing the kinds of things his group does, but it is a net money loser. Rasa taught me a long time ago if you're doing shit that is losing money you must be making a profit in something besides money.

So what's his angle?

Going over the stuff he's said also reveals that he's made a number of creepy-ass references that, until Nazara showed up, made zero sense. Shit like "one must always be aware that the assumption of origins of the nature of the Enkindlers is only assumption" and "the Citadel is a flower of death, not of life, fueled by and built on those who died ignorant of its true purpose."

That worries me. It worries me because he might have known what the Citadel was going to be planned for before Nazara even showed up, which in turn makes me ask "how" and "who told him?"

Note I don't ask : "why didn't he just come out and say it plain?" First, hanar don't say anything plain. Second, be honest : if a jelly told us the Citadel was a trap and big AI death robots from beyond the galactic rim were going to show up and kill us, everyone would have thought he was making another weird drunken joke.

A few other things don't add up.

Delan's group of 'engineers' are certainly very handy with weapons tech of all kinds – they were the ones who broke down exactly how the sine-wave speed alteration shit the geth used on their rifles worked, and rumor has it the Palavanus sent them some stuff from their new Thanix cannon to ask questions. Except the Palavanus don't consult with any-fucking-body according to Pel. Ever. For anything at all. So, WTF?

On top of that is the dude himself. Delan was attacked twice by assailants, and in both cases he killed them very nearly instantly – broken neck for a turian, injected neurotoxins and putrefactive agents for the other attacker, a pissed off asari. Now, according to what I know, most hanar don't train in personal combat skills unless they are military...and they _stay_ military for life.

So is Delan ex-military? He knows a LOT about engineering, and very little about selling. He talks a lot of poetry and religious stuff and sort of passes himself off as a priest...but he never actually has CALLED himself a priest.

According to the valkhana, priests don't use weapons or kill. Huh. Makes me wonder why an military hanar is passing himself off as a drunken idjit.

Personality? Delan's a damned blank. He acts silly and airheaded and then calmly explains the best mods to take down SIU armor at range with for any weapon you can name. He gets drunk and wanders about … yet these wanderings take him all over the place, and who knows what kind of eavesdropping tech he has? He claims he's not very good at being an engineer since he's a 'simple thinker', but some of the more innovative stuff his people came up with – using purely Citadel tech – baffled the best salarian engineers for months before they figured it out.

The whole Indulgent nickname thing puzzles me too. One of the STG reports Minsta skimmed over had some stuff in their about injected toxins and the like not working because of the hyper-efficient filtration systems. Which makes me ask: if they can filter out most poisons and simple drugs...how is he supposedly _drunk_?

* * *

 ** **Farmas the Denied****

The Fornax pimp-lord himself!

Compared to most hanar, Farmas is slightly larger, and he's hacked off the ends of his leading tentacles to replace them with sex tools. (That sounds really nasty, BTW. I really hope he sprung for an autosterilize routine.) He's witty, a bit less drifty when he talks, and all of his poetry tends to the gushy and sexually explicit.

Farmas is the 'leader' of the hanar at the Vabo's biggest colony, and the personal hanger on of Ielisia Vabo, the daughter of the Matriarch, who is completely besotted with the jelly – like, she has panic attacks when he's not around. I've heard of being sprung, but damn, girl. Get a grip.

Farmas spends a lot of his time drilling the shit out of Ielisia, but is hardly loyal to her. By his own boasting admission, Farmas has tagged over two thousand asari, a hundred turian ladies, some quarian females, and six human females (including, of course, our lovely party girl Aish Ashland. Girl gets around more than Chambers does!)

Farmas is about as straightforward as hanar get, claiming he's in it for parties, wild sex, crazy adventures and having a blast. He's also making a killing in selling and producing Fornax, which has gone from a simple extranet kink site to a full blown corporation, with local 'intermix clubs', full service 'social interaction events', glossy haptic magazines, nine movies, a news program, a lingerie line, condoms, turian fertility drugs, sex-toys for every race (including vorcha?) and their own brand of quarian nerve-stim implants.

Goddamn, boy.

Farmas tweaked his own speech processor to literally speak like a slimy porn star in turian porn flicks, and is supposedly called the Denied because he keeps trying to get in bed with Uressa T'Shora and she keeps (laughingly) shooting him down. All of his cash goes into the communal Vabo hanar fund, and is basically blown on drugs, liquor, sex parties, expensive lodgings, and the like. He's got a six million credit expense account with Nova Pharmacetutal on developing stronger and crazier hallucinogenic and psychotropic drugs.

(Aside: Farmas downed a fucking liter of turian horchess straight out of the bottle and chased it with two bottles of krogan ryncol and said it 'tickled'. I'm calling bullshiat on Delan's drunkenness.)

Farmas has been loudly expressing he sees the Citadel Races as "walking ghosts" and that he's here to have fun and memorialize us before we're all gone – and that we'll be gone sooner rather than later. The asari, who at this point probably can't even walk straight or think after being fucked silly for the past century, claim the hanar mean that people die and need memorialization, through siari or whatever the hell that stuff is. But to me? With the recent shit we learned about Reapers, that is COMPLETELY creepy as all fuck and has more to do with he thinks we're all gonna get wiped. Does he expect to survive? Maybe the Enkindlers are actually Reapers? It would explain their fuck-all technology.

Anyway, digging dirt on this guy is just as hard as finding shit on Delan is. We know he spends half his day banging asari and putting together porn vids, and then the other half in his private tower on Vabo lands, which are a _teensy_ bit impossible to infiltrate given the hordes of House Vabo guardians and the two freaking war priestesses that hang out there.

But we can follow his money. While he chunks everything he makes into the communal account, the interest from said account is, oddly enough, being invested through some shady and discreet links with, of all fucking people...Barla Von Financial. The same bank the Citadel Hanar use, and who is a clear Broker front.

Here's the real kicker. About a year back, just after the bullshit with Shepard getting offed blew up, is when this investment started – before then, the interest was just left in the regular account. So why the change?

Hard to say.

Farmas wants really hard to sound like a party dude. But again, the fact his personal bodyguards are six Remembrance Dancers who claim to have 'retired' doesn't paint that picture very well, now does it? Also, Fornax Corporation, for a fucking porn site, has cyberdefenses even the STG hasn't cracked yet. Vigil said he'd take a look and came back saying he was sure he could break through but not before being detected and possibly attacked – there are _live_ AI's, as in multiple, _many_ , hooked up to the Fornax datanet.

I recommend quietly tipping C-SEC Computer Criminal Investigation off to this factoid and seeing what rolls out.

* * *

 ** **Ithorex the Unready****

Hands down, the all-time 'what the fuck' winner of the Hanar awards is this guy. Ithorex (he likes to be called Rex) hangs out on the Citadel in Kithoi and styles himself a 'problem solver' and 'simple artesian'.

The problems the guys 'solves' are usually ones involving people who need to die. Rex himself does not ever leave his little shop, and when someone turns up dead inevitably has an iron-clad alibi witnessed by C-SEC officers in person.

Yet if you want someone dead, this is the guy you go to. He runs a small knicknack shop in the Lower Kithoi, where he carves and sells little figurines of coral shapes. They're actually pretty good. If you go in and request one in black coral, he'll ask for an image you want to use.

Give him the picture of a target and in _exactly_ ten days the person will be dead.

For some images, he'll look at them, and hand them back, saying he doesn't have the skills for such a commission. But most time he takes the job, and sends the customer a carved coral figurine ten days later of the now dead person.

C-SEC has been dying to arrest this guy for sixty years and they can't get ANYTHING to stick. The kills are complete creepy-pasta. People have shown up dead inside locked, secured rooms, on spaceships on the far side of the galaxy, in the middle of camps of mercenaries hired to protect them, and so on. One guy hired the Broker to protect him, and was dead ten days later with an entire fucking level ten liquidation team massacred around him.

One guy was on a ship deep in Aria's space and literally timed his FTL trip to be at the end of the ten days, since he'd been tipped off. The ship had a random FTL failure mid-flight and came apart right at the ten day point.

No one hears anything or sees anything. No evidence. The wounds in every one of these cases (except a very few, like the FTL failure) are some kind of mono-edged blade or possibly mono-molecular impact whip. No fragments of armor, DNA, skin, cells, anything has ever been found. No money trail of him paying anyone to do these hits.

Rex says he's just a shy artist, and his name of the Unready comes from him failing to complete an important commission on time. What a load of bullshit.

Digging deeper into this person's background is beyond me or Rasa, you need to send serious hard asses like Ezno or the Odd Couple for this level of hax bullshit. I mean, I like danger and all, and I'm sure I could talk my way out of it...except if I can't, I don't wanna be a shitty coral carving, you know?

* * *

 ** **Lansisas the Silent****

Hanar are just fucking trolling us, I swear.

Lanisas the Silent is a hanar preacher on the Citadel who constantly rails at passersby in Kithoi to find the light of the Enkindlers and turn away from false states of existence. C-SEC arrests this guy at least once a week, the hanar bail him out, and he's back at it.

He's almost never actually _silent_.

Unlike the previous three, he's not creepy in and of himself. But some of what comes out of his mouth is terrifying.

A sample:

 _Six months before Eden Prime:_ "The Enkindlers will send a sign, a darkness that will blot out the easy living in the shallows. And you will ignore it,and tell yourselves all is well, when this darkness fades. But darkness does not die, and when the tide is upon you, say not that this one did not warn you of your dangers."

Or this:

 _Two weeks after Benezia died:_ "This one says that the tides that sweep in good news only bring you sorrow. The words upon the wall are stark and clear; yet fools see the discarded brush used to write them and made glad sayings, thinking the danger is passed. If you cannot see the danger in your own faces, by your own hands and the hands of your sons and daughters, how then can you see that in plain sight that you have ignored forever?"

Or maybe this:

 _A week after Shepard's death "_ The wails of the lost are no comfort to those who know the reasons behind these things. This one would warn you again, but ears will not hear and tongues will still wag after the memory of the pain is gone. You have already lost the only one who could have heeded the warning: now you smear the very memory with focused forgetfulness."

We've been taking a lot of what this guy says and trying to piece it together, and my best guess?

Assuming I'm going through what he's saying accurately, the Reapers know we blew up Nazara, but we aren't important enough – yet – for the hammer to fall. But someone is already preparing that hammer and we ourselves will bring it down on our heads if we are not careful. The Enkindlers are working to save us, but salvation requires blood and pain, and submission, and if we turn away when the sacrifice is presented, we'll all die.

I don't know how to link this to anything we can currently evaluate, big man. But it worries me a lot.

* * *

 ** **Moriggi the Peaceful****

Ahahaha no.

Wow, these hanar are really blatant with the mockery in their nicknames.

Moriggi (like to be called "Gi") is the so-called 'weapons expert' at Delan's Emporium, and the only hanar we've seen with heavy external cybernetics. Three of his tentacles are mechanical in nature, two of them with built in omni-shields of some kind, and a sort of framework with armor covers most of his right side, along with mounting hardware of some kind.

Moriggi claims he believes in pacifism for all beings. Based on the skills he shows at the C-SEC practice range open to the public, I doubt that. The guy can make headshots on targets at 120 yards with four pistols firing at four targets, and is every bit as good as Delan at providing tactical advice when choosing weapon or armor mods from the Emporium.

Aside from Delan and Farmas the Pimp Lord, Moriggi is the most often seen hanar on the extranet, and is usually in contact with a lot of mercenary groups, weapons manufactures, and the like. Tracing this network of contacts has proven exhausting and of very little actual use – Moriggi seems to source components they sell on the Citadel from lots of places, and then recombine them into new forms.

Every weapon he sells is custom built from the ground up, and flawless. And everything comes with a lifetime guarantee and freaking _life insurance_ – they'll pay your surviving kin if one his weapons fails in a fight that ends up with you dead.

No one has ever collected on this shit … huh. Maybe I need to replace my shotgun.

One thing stands out about this one is his public statements on pacifism. At first listen it sounds pretty much like what it says on the tin : he thinks violence is bad and should be avoided. But if you start to really dissect what he's saying, between the lines there's another message:

You people suck at war and you should really not piss off the Hanar Ascendancy anymore, or the next Refusal War will be the Last Refusal War.

Moriggi hangs out, when he's not at the Emporium, in the chambers of the Citadel Council, in the lower section open to the public. His only known hobby is coming up with various genetic splices of fish from Kahje, which he doesn't sell but gives away as gifts to customers. Supposedly they're really good.

* * *

 ** **Iochais the Simple****

Iochais is the most 'enlightened' philosopher-priest of the Ninety-four, and is deferred to by most of the exiled hanar almost as much as they defer to Delan or Farmas. He rarely speaks in public, tends to hang around the Kithoi ward uppers in his own little tower, and on first glance is unimportant.

Wrong. Wrong!

From what I can figure out, Iochais is 'senior' to Delan and Farmas, and is an actual priest who we can confirm was once on the Highest Chorus. In fact, his distinct appearance – several cross hatched scars on his flank from some form of sea-life on Kahje – match up with the speaker of the Highest during the First Refusal War.

That would make him very, very old indeed.

It took a good amount of digging and the like, but Vigil was able to identify some really sneaky and super-well encrypted comm channels between Farmas and Iochais, and Rasa and I observed him speaking several times to Delan just before Delan was to go on some extranet show. Iochais himself has a trio of 'retired' Remembrance Dancers – and some truly ugly automated security systems near and in his tower abode.

Iochais has never given interviews or appeared on the extranet, and his only interaction is a series of written philosophy-poems and some hanar 'artwork'. Asking hanar about them inevitably ends with them saying something like 'this one is not worthy to comment on the enlightened nature of Iochais the Simple."

Reading his philosophy will break your head open.

The most … disturbing one, called 'Reflections on the Nature of Is', is actually illegal in Citadel space, because people reading it have a nasty tendency to commit suicide. The snippet I managed to find online was bad enough:

 _The futile nature of emotion and intellect_

 _is to realize these are not higher thoughts_

 _They are not emergent, measured aspects of intellect_

 _They are chemical impulses, animal instincts_

 _Sentience is a lie, sapience a wave of the manipulator_

 _One might as well call fire alive_

 _One might as well call chlorine reactions reflexes_

 _How can anything have meaning when a machine_

 _Can imitate everything you call 'life'?_

The troubling thing about this maybe ex-High Chorus jelly is this: we've been told the Ninety-four originally left hanar space due to philosophical differences. The hanar who've come here don't appear to be doing much to demonstrate exactly what these differences are.

So...when you ask about the differences, you rarely get a straight answer. Delan and Farmas's philosophies appear to clash. An Elcor Lifemaster once asked Iochais his own view, and got this for an answer:

 _If one has a field of beautiful flowers_

 _gleaming in high-bright radiance (note: hanar word for UV radiance)_

 _blown gently by unseen breezes,_

 _Shaped delicately, scattered in innocent fields unaware_

 _even as the tidal waves approach to wipe all clean_

 _is it better to commit them to memory from a distance, to remember their radiance in the sun_

 _or to save them from the flood, to preserve the seed of what they are to replant, to see the sun again_

 _when the waves have gone down for a time._

 _The wise will say that the waves will return, again and again_

 _To save them is the stubborn idiocy of belief in choice, in hope_

 _To memorize them is to give them eternity, immune to the death of the physical_

 _The fool will say they have their own value_

 _That memory fades, and to deny them a chance to grow once more in the sun is sad_

 _But life is its own reward, it has no purpose but joy_

 _The Enlightened will say the point of the flowers is not to live, or die_

 _To be memorialized, or to be saved and replanted anew_

 _but to remind one that but for the grace of the Enkindlers_

 _You would be just another flower, unaware._

 _We watch, not to remember, not to bring salvation, but in humble gratitude._

* * *

 ** **On the Highest Chorus of today:****

The current bunch of priest-guys is more laid back than previous Chorii. The very few communications the races of the Citadel have had with them have been brief and to the point.

The destruction of Nazara had them demand we turn over the wreckage as 'Prothean artifacts'. When the Council claimed the wreck was not Prothean, the hanar sent back a rather cryptic message:

'Tampering with what one does not understand only opens more doors one is unprepared to deal with."

Since then, they've mostly been mum about the incident, although it's worth noting Delan's group has been called on several times for feedback and analysis and they all acted like this was hilarity.

Weirdness.

On other aspects, the Chorus is talking with the Batarian Emperor a lot, and with Aria. Getting spies inside the Black Palace is not ever going to be possible, big man. But we have a few insights into what they talked to Aria about – the protocol for faking up asari we tested out still works pretty good.

Supposedly, the Ascendancy is concerned that Aria is hostile towards the Collectors, and seemed to indicate that Aria should leave well enough alone, or that it might threaten trade. Aria's answer was pretty angry, and the hanar haven't brought it up since, but have been doing a larger portion of trade with the Batarians and turian separatist groups since the communication.

* * *

 **Final Notes:**

We got a lot of strange moving pieces that don't add up to make sense. Might be time to take a few risks and get us more people...it's just us few operators, and we're about exhausted.

That's all I've got. Minsta said he'll be back at Moonbeam by this weekend to start on the drell stuff, which should be a bit easier to work – probably want some more military insight into that, since the drell are pretty nasty in a fight that doesn't involve planets with water vapor in the atmosphere.

I included a big attachment to this – complete edition of the 2181 Fornax Spread on Asari. Make sure Doc M gets it!

Arrivederci!


	10. Hanar Miscellany

**A/N: WARNING:** _Severe spoilers in this section._

 _As with all of the OOC sections, this one illustrates that which Cerberus cannot see on their own. Some additional information about the Ascended can be found in the document **"**_ ** _Fear Unrelenting, Seen Darkly"_** _if you are confused._

* * *

 **The Cerberus Files : Separatist Races**

 ** _Out of Character Notes : Hanar_**

* * *

 **The Mystery of the Hanar**

The hanar do not, in any way, shape, or form, worship the _Protheans_ _._

But they think they do.

 _WARNING: This section includes a great many spoilers._

The hanar are the ultimate predators, gene-shaped and edited by Protheans to prevent overpopulation of one of their more important food centers. And in canon ME, they would have found some old Prothean ruins and been the silly gasbags we all know and love.

Unfortunately, Kahje already had an inhabitant when the Protheans showed up.

The long story of the fall of the High Ascended – those called Leviathans – is not important to the story of the hanar. Suffice it to say, only a few survived the creation of the Reapers, and they split into several conflicting groups, some of which have been destroyed over the years by the Darkness.

One of these survivors was part of what amounted to the Ascended military. Betrayed by both his own people and nearly crazed as a result of fighting the Darkness, he managed to follow the main body of the Reaper forces as they fled the Darkness. Nursing his wounds and fearing to draw on the Godpower, he limped along.

This single Ascended, named Katha, did not die. He managed to drag himself to the Milky Way, still seeking vengeance, and went into hibernation on Kahje. He didn't awaken until Prothean mining operations woke him from the bottom of a deep oceanic abyss.

It didn't take him long to realize that he was alone. He spent several decades examining the galaxy, and discovered the energy field that formed the Severity. Grasping that any use of the Godpower in large-scale events would only get him killed – by Reapers or by the Darkness – he knew he would need alternative methods of finding out information.

When the Protheans woke him up, they didn't notice him because he clouded their minds to ignore him. And when he decided he needed tools, he used his powers on the Protheans of Kahje, warping their minds.

It took over two centuries, but he eventually subtly affected the entire race. The very existence of Kahje was eliminated from the minds of all Protheans, and he had the Protheans tow several mass relays far from Kahje as he investigated events.

With his immediate safety secured, he began experimenting with finding out how limited his power was. He eventually determined that the Severity energy field was generated by the mass relay network, tapping into stars. He was still determining how to proceed, and if he should take more open action, when the Reapers arrived to harvest the Protheans.

He used his Influence to move the Protheans off of Kahje and out of the area entirely, leaving behind pristine Prothean structures. He then began tinkering with the very structure of life on Kahje, eventually altering the proto-hanar into his personal servant race.

The hanar acted as Katha's eyes and hands, allowing him to carefully watch events without acting openly. He watched the fall of the Protheans and the subtle meddling of parties unknown with what remained, and decided to closely observe several Cycles before acting.

Katha told the hanar, through visions and minuscule uses of Godpower, that he was the god of the Protheans, and that the hanar should worship him and the Protheans, in return for his protection and guidance. His alterations to how hanar thought and acted made this easy, as they were literally bred to be his mental slaves. Over time, he has shaped and controlled hanar thinking, philosophy, and culture to the point where they are far more effective (and dangerous) than the crudely controlled Collectors used by the Reapers.

He was not very threatened by the Reapers (they could not perceive his presence), but he did not have the strength to destroy them all by himself. While he had recovered from his wounds and could probably destroy dozens, there were at least a thousand Reapers, and he couldn't defeat that many on his own. He considered spawning, but immature Ascended take tens of thousands of years to fully mature, and he wasn't sure he had that kind of time since he knew nothing of what the Darkness was doing.

Ultimately, he planned to create a form of his own Reapers, if he could find the technology and knowledge to do so. These would form a guard he could use, and give him the time and security to raise a brood of younglings. He thus began his work, and bent the hanar to scouring the galaxy.

He gathered a great amount of knowledge and was proceeding apace, until his hanar came across the Dark Gods – the other military Ascended who'd survived thus far, wrapped up in their own plan to take down the Reapers. Rather than work together, however, the Black Leviathans warned him to leave them be – and so he did. Whatever had happened to that group of Ascended, they were, in his opinion, mentally unstable, and, in the condition they were in, posed no real threat to him.

At the same time, the fact that he was not the last of his kind both pleased and irked him. After long pondering, he decided that he would merely observe. The hanar and batarians form the only communication link between Katha and the Dark Gods. While the Dark Gods are wounded and crippled, Katha is mostly intact, but a fight would serve neither party.

Instead, Katha's long-term plans remain: find a method to create his own Reapers, crush the Reapers, and use the newly created Reapers to kill off the Dark Gods, then restart the race – under his command, of course. Only once that was complete could he seriously contemplate how to deal with the Darkness.

In the short-term, he plans to use his hanar mostly as observers, relying on his ability with the Influence to erase the knowledge of their existence from the minds of the galaxy's sapients.

The only snag in such a plan is the observation of the Collectors, who are (ironically) Protheans. He has declared them apostates to the hanar, but also claimed they can be redeemed. His agents (both hanar forces and other operatives he has dominated) are now working toward communicating with the Collectors, both to mislead them about the hanar and to offer to 'free them' if they can aid him in his own plans.

This operation has been very fruitful, with the Collectors staring at genetic collapse in less than two centuries. In return for making some alterations to the Reaper they were already creating, he has promised to restore them to their pre-Indoctrinal forms if they will serve him as the hanar do.

The Collectors, so far, are playing both the Reapers and Katha, but the Ascended knows it is only a matter of time before they agree.

The only fly in the ointment for Katha is that he is not aware that Lethath and other Ascended younglings also survived. Additionally, he is not aware of just how many Reapers there are and what they are up to. When he figures this out, he is likely to have to refactor his plans.

The hanar understand almost nothing of this, simply believing him to be a literal, physical god. They do attempt to obfuscate the truth as much as possible, and if pressed will activate some old Prothean VI and claim that as the source of their knowledge, but most of it is crumbs from Katha. Much of their technology is merely castoff bits of ancient tech the Ascended gifted to their own thrall races – if things get serious, Katha is not above arming the hanar with Ascended-level weapons systems that would puree a Reaper (much less Citadel tech) with a single shot.

* * *

 **Hanar Social Structures**

As a result of being twisted and molded over thousands of years, the hanar are far different in almost every way than other races. While most races evolved their culture in response to their environment and interactions with others of their species, hanar culture and social structure were created and modified by Katha extensively.

The hanar are not a truly collectivist culture in some ways, but are in others. Hanar place no value on 'things,' and immense value on experiences and knowledge, so it should be no surprise that most hanar are focused solely on social interaction rather than things like wealth or power. Hanar do not see the point of materialism, both because they know that their god can literally create wealth or rare elements from energy, and because they have taken up a philosophy that ignores such things.

Hanar see themselves as a sort of extended family, elite servants of their god. In exchange for long life, nearly limitless technology, and protection against enemies, the hanar in turn serve Katha with unbreakable zeal. They do not believe in an afterlife, but they do believe that death is but an inconvenience for Katha – buttressed by the fact that several hanar who pleased Katha were simply 'resurrected' as young hanar again upon death.

The core of their viewpoint thus affects their social structure, which is designed to produce groups of hanar good at anything and everything Katha might need them to perform. Katha's mental dominance of the hanar also plays a huge role, in that under his dominance, hanar do not compete with one another.

Ultimately, even if Katha were to vanish or die, the hanar would not change much. Their culture simply doesn't need to value such things as they all work together and any instincts of internal conflict, greed, or intraspecies violence was bred out of them hundreds of generations ago.

* * *

 **Hanar Communication**

Most hanar communication is done via the already known methods, but both of these are usually done in the so-called 'trade ways.' The hanar have an entirely different method of mixing both UV and pheromones for private conversations, and unbeknownst to the Citadel races, hanar don't just use UV and pheromones to communicate. They can also vary the strength of certain electrical fields inside their bodies, and detect this in others.

Called softspeak, this is a racial secret none have exposed, and it allows hanar unparalleled discretion when speaking with other hanar where aliens might otherwise overhear. Their pheromonal communications also allow this, but that requires hanar be close enough to touch – softspeak can be detected and 'spoken' at a range of over a kilometer.

While softspeak is silent and undetectable, it is also highly limited. Designed mostly as a language of secrecy and duress, it is good for communicating simple concepts, but not complex ones such as math or physics.

Hanar, as noted elsewhere, find spoken speech clumsy and badly constructed, missing the multilayered elegance of their own language. They strive to speak clearly, formally, and with great grace, and do not like those who speak crudely. Hanar impressions of alien beings are mostly formed based on how they speak, rather than actions or other concepts.

* * *

 **The Ninety-Four Outcasts**

The hanar are, by nature, very insular. This did not always work out in the way Katha wanted – while it certainly kept infiltrators and spies from discovering his existence, it limited the information he could obtain. As a result, he decided to 'tweak' the controls he had on a small number of hanar, giving them new missions.

The Ninety-Four were to spread Katha's Influence, carrying with them Influence Orbs to scatter around in various places. They were to observe the levers of power aboard the Citadel, and find ways to incorporate special spy technology (which is built into the many weapons upgrades they perform). These tiny chips are based on Ascended technology and allow hanar forces to shut down any weapon they've modified instantly.

The mission of Delan is mostly benign: modify weapons systems, ensure further conflict between the Citadel Races and the hanar is kept to a minimum, and reinforce the idea that the hanar are simply not worth the trouble of fighting if you can have limited interactions with them in peace. Delan is one of the most fanatical hanar, and as a result, has been very careful not to show his hand or tip anyone off. He also sincerely wishes he could bring the truth of Katha's existence to the pitiful Citadel races and provide salvation, but is forbidden to do so directly.

The mission of Farmas is more hostile, and its purpose and targets were determined after Katha discovered evidence that the Protheans had heavily meddled with the asari. His primary mission – suborn the asari and determine what exactly the Protheans did with them and why – is going well. So far, House Vabo has been _completely_ suborned, and more than a few Lesser Houses have begun dallying with hanar.

Vabo is so corrupted – not just by hanar sex acts, but by hanar investment, hanar technology in their own works, and hanar carefully gathering information for blackmail – that the matriarch is the only one not totally controlled. She is in very poor health and aged, and will not live much longer. She will be replaced as matriarch by her daughter, who is so fallen she would do anything Farmas demanded of her.

While hanar memories are blocked from asari melding and even bonding, Katha can see inside the minds of anything linked to any hanar, and has uncovered a great amount of information – which he tends to have the hanar sell to P. Katha has now discovered some of his hanar are targets of the asari Discerning, and is laughing in amusement as he can now counter-infiltrate that and gain intelligence from many other sources at once.

Unlike Delan, Farmas finds most non-hanar to be too wrapped up in their own silly concerns about money and power to be worthy of worshipping Katha. He merely likes exploring their cultures and societies, memorizing what he can that he finds worth remembering.

Hanar raised far from Katha's Influence are, after several generations, beginning to show minor levels of more intellectual freedom. This is intentional – both Delan and Farmas have Influence Orbs in their areas of operation, so distance is not what is causing this to happen. Katha plans to see if being moved out of his constant domination makes the hanar more intellectually capable or not.

In a way, Katha cares for his tools, and does not want them to end up like the Collectors. Then again, he was considered strange by his own kind.

* * *

 **Hanar Society**

For the bulk of the hanar people, they simply live their lives. Most hanar know nothing much about Katha, save that he is real and is great. They enjoy their lives in peace and mostly carefree harmony, without needing to work.

They are creatures who seek experiences and change, to discuss and argue and philosophize, as material goods and wealth are ultimately pointless in their society. Hanar take up tasks as needed, or when 'nudged' by Katha, but otherwise tend toward their own affairs. They pride themselves on organization and efficiency.

Hanar see the point of life as a mixture of service to the god and experiences they can share, and tend to be truly relaxed and unconcerned about 'events,' confident that no matter what, their god will protect and guide them. This gives their culture an almost playful and ultimately carefree aspect that does not really allow for hanar to become unhappy or disgruntled.

While they are certainly not mindless thralls with creepy monotone voices, nor are they fully free of the Influence. Only glow-children are unaffected, and as soon as they hit maturity, most are exposed to an Influence Orb to mesh them into the desired mindset.

* * *

 **Hanar Foods and Drinks**

Hanar are alpha predators and usually only eat sea life, along with occasional nutritional supplements. Hanar 'cooking' is minimal in nature, and most hanar food prep is more about appearance and experience than pure taste.

Hanar drinks, on the other hand, are taken more seriously. While hanar cannot get intoxicated to the level of humans, they can feel a pleasant lightness when they've imbibed enough strong alcohol.

Many hanar liquors include chemical byproducts designed to alter and heighten various sensory responses, while others are more geared toward placing a hanar in a receptive 'trance' state for easier communion with Katha.

* * *

 **Hanar Romance and Sexuality**

Hanar don't have 'romance' as we would understand it, as hanar are literally both sexes. Family units do not exist, and offspring are raised communally. They tend to mate with other hanar who mesh well with their own philosophy, and it is rare that hanar feel the need to reproduce. When they do so, the act is (like most other things in hanar life) taken as an experience. Hanar who do mate tend to stick with the same partner, but the nature of such relationships is more like best friends than lovers.

Tide-families are usually constructed when there is a perceived need for a kind of specialist, and are coordinated by various local Chorii. Hanar volunteer to become part of such tide-families, usually done with hanar who are as yet unmated and feel a need to be of use to the people and their god.

When it comes to aliens, hanar see sexuality as yet another experience, and are not hesitant to perform sexual acts with literally anything. They do not, however, tie much importance to the event, aside from a point of interaction with aliens.

The Vabo hanar have become somewhat indulgent in such things, to the point where they now consider it part of their daily routine, and will become argumentative if this is changed. Most hanar partnered with asari tend to focus only on one.

Hanar pheromones can be tailored to drive asari into sexual frenzies, and many have performed subtle biological modifications to their forms to further corrupt the asari – indeed, they provided the batarians with the biotech implants that put asari into permanently 'linked' mode. In the past five years, Farmas has actually had certain addictive drugs analyzed and broken into pheromonal chain forms, resulting in asari that are literally addicted to their hanar 'partner.'

A small number of asari slaves from the Traverse have been purchased and sent to Kahje for experimentation on how to further break the race. The hanar have expended large sums of money ensuring the sexual cults of the Dreaming Dancers in asari culture flourish, even to the point of dispatching drell assassins to head off justicars attempting to smash such cults. They also fund such cults and ensure their spread, which has driven the Thirty to distraction as they have not yet figured out the hanar are behind this.

Hanar are _immune_ to the drain-kill effect of ardat-yakshi and ardat-rekshi. While this was not something they planned for, more a side-effect of their own bodies, it was very interesting to the hanar (and shocking to the ardat-yakshi in question before they killed her). This is something they keep a secret, and they murder any AYs they come across to ensure this remains so. They have plans to turn the asari Nightwind against the Thirty one day, but not soon.

* * *

 **Hanar Poetry and Entertainment**

Hanar entertainment and poetry are seen as methods to exercise the mind and allow for the sharing of experiences. Most poetry is done in several simultaneous meters – one in highspeak, one in deepspeak, and one in softspeak. Traditionally, the highspeak elements are the story itself, deepspeak conveying emotional overtones and inner thoughts, softspeak conveying the verbal equivalent of footnotes.

Shorn of this layered presentation, hanar poetry often comes off as silly, drifty, or unnecessarily laden with useless metaphor. Hanar are amused at this level of pretension on the part of aliens, who would of course sneer at anyone who made snide remarks about their own cultural works without a complete understanding.

Hanar music incorporates elements of the 'song' they are subjected to by the Influence Orbs of Katha, which is vastly unsettling for mortal ears in most cases. This is but a shadow of a true Ascended war-shout, which makes the Reaper's much weaker version sound like a kazoo – Ascended were capable of driving entire planets to madness or catatonia with such sonic assaults.

Hanar board games are mostly mental pursuits, and many of them are tied in with poems and other hanar art. The games have a religious aspect, in that they are 'mind patterns' that the hanar follow to more clearly hear the voice of their god. Watching one of these games for long periods of time can give most non-hanar splitting headaches, but can also weaken them to the Influence (and conventional indoctrination, for that matter).

* * *

 **Hanar Names and Soul Names**

Hanar names are mostly chosen by the hanar itself upon maturity, while their moniker is usually bestowed upon them in the first ten years of life. Hanar do not acquire a vouchsafe name until they chose to mate.

The hanar soul name is critically important, as it is imbued upon each hanar by Katha upon their maturing. It is the connecting link between the Leviathan and the thrall, and by using the name, Katha (or anyone who knows the name) can command the hanar.

Katha can also use soul names to focus the Godpower onto a particular hanar for a brief moment, which enables him to act through the hanar directly (much like Nazara and Harbinger do with Collectors, but without a physical manifestation). This is _incredibly_ dangerous, for when Kahta puppets a hanar in this fashion you are face-to-face with the literal avatar of a god. Even the most minor of Godpower manipulations, so soft as to be undetectable, would be more than enough to kill a room full of soldiers, or crash a stock market, or destabilize an eezo core.

Most of the mocking hanar public names are actually a sort of game the hanar play, to see if they can identify the true nature of the hanar in question through conversation rather than observation. But the mocking nature of the names is a razor-sharp matter of irony in many cases – for example, Delan is often truly indulgent, if not with liquor. And Farmas has been denied something he wished for very much.

Hanar will only share their soul name with a being who has risked not only his life, but the wellbeing of his very race or otherwise taken an action with consequences worse than just letting the hanar die. Very few have been gifted such a thing, and most of them have gone missing – for the use of a hanar soul name is a double-edged sword, and it links the user to Katha and allows him free reign to use the Influence on the speaker.

* * *

 **Hanar Technology**

Almost all of the more advanced hanar technology is _similar_ to Prothean or Inusannon technology, but in actually is reverse-engineered to appear as such by Katha – a trivial task for him. The more critical elements use bits of Leviathan technology, including solid-state quantum foam-cloud computing and 'tweaks' to how certain elements and materials interact.

All of it is made using certain forges Katha has created, which use various subtle Godpower shortcuts in construction, making reverse-engineering any of it almost impossible.

All hanar technology operates with pheromonal input, and all of it has elements that will self-destruct silently when touched by a non-hanar without a hanar also touching it. Hanar personal weapons have no triggers that can be seen and hanar shielding emits hard rads that don't affect hanar, but will eventually kill non-hanar.

The Prism Lance is a distinctly non-Prothean weapon. Vigil hasn't gotten around to looking at the hanar very much, but if he was able to analyze it he'd recognize it as a weapons system originally created by the race prior to the Inusannon, which would raise certain questions. Thus far, the hanar have been careful to make sure most of their visible technology is roughly Prothean-level, not more advanced.

* * *

 **The Refusal Wars**

Despite seemingly coming out on top, the two Refusal Wars badly crippled the hanar military, and killed many of their most experienced warriors. While the hanar fleet is still more than capable of mauling a Citadel fleet twice its size, the number of ships and the level of technology has increased multiple times since the Second Refusal. A third would probably result in a Citadel Fleet victory, which would expose Katha.

As such, the hanar are doing their best to distract the Council from such an idea, both by using the Ninety-Four, and by more conventional means such as funding Aria, hiring up large amounts of mercenaries and keeping them near the border, and tossing the Council a new technology every now and then.

If truly pressed, Katha would simply upgrade the hanar ships to use far more powerful weapons, but the risk of exposure (and Reaper interest) would be too high to justify doing so large-scale, or doing so prior to another Refusal War. Already the Reapers suspect something is off about the hanar, even though the Collector reports on them make them out to be mostly harmless.


	11. Drell Overview

**A/N:** _Just a little teaser. Added some stuff to next TWCD chapter for Editing Gang review. Still writing._

* * *

 **The Cerberus Files : Separatist Races**

* * *

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* * *

Sir,

I am pleased that you found the hanar write-up useful. While it is often… stressful to work alongside Agent Brooks in any capacity, I do appreciate both the work she and Rasa did on the hanar military (which was probably incredibly dangerous), as well as giving me time to organize personal family events.

Tiffany's work on the Unseen Cloud seems to be both useful and accurate, although I do take into consideration Trellani's disdain for her attitude. I will not apologize for such, as money and influence and social height do not make up for the cruel barbs of other noble children taunting her about her mother, or the lack thereof in her life.

I would like to see Tiffany more fully integrated into Cerberus. I know the work we do is highly dangerous and that there is every possibility that things may go horribly wrong and she could be executed for grand treason. There is also every possibility, even if she works in the financial and diplomatic sections of Cerberus, of her being killed by STG goons or worse.

That being said, I must point out that despite her incredible talents, high intellect, prodigious learning capacity, and well-rounded physical assets (ah, poor choice of words, there)… ahem, _impressive_ physical abilities, Operative Lawson is not exactly charismatic. I won't argue with you at this time who should lead the project. Instead, I will point out that the entirety of Project Revenant is costing us a literally staggering amount of money and resources, and we need additional sources of such to keep moving forward.

Tiffany has completed her master's degree in intergalactic finance and economics, both at the University of Arcturus and through correspondence with the University of Sur'Kesh (FTL Economics) and the Grande Salon of Vol Prime (Fiduciary Economics). On top of that, she has been managing House Minsta's funds for the past four years and has increased our wealth by almost forty percent in under three years.

With the death of Samuel Derjais in the chaos of Benedict, you have had to run economic operations yourself. I submit that with proper vetting, training, and, of course, a stern injunction against mouthing off to people like Leng, Tiffany would serve excellently as a director of the economic projects we have in the post, such as the deal with the von Graths and with House Drescher.

I, sadly, am both overloaded with increasing responsibilities to my House as my father's faculties slip further, as well as simply too burdened with running the Cerberus Scientific Directorate. My daughter believes, Mr. Harper, in a way some of our operatives have lost due to the trauma and tragedy they have suffered defending humanity, often from itself.

We need new blood. Shepard may or may not work out, but if she does, I somehow doubt she will long tolerate anyone of Cerberus who was around prior to Benedict. Having new faces like Tiffany may ameliorate this if we can show the organization is not merely the hater of the alien.

Forgive me for the long digression, but researching the hanar was incredibly stressful and somewhat frightening.

I now move onto the hanar's pawns, the drell. In a way, Mr. Harper, the drell are _less_ alien than every other species out there, despite their outlandish appearance and freakish biology. Drell concepts include guilt, sin, manifest destiny, noblesse oblige, appreciation of stubbornness, defiance in the face of death, and a straightforward honor code.

Their society is not exactly what I would think is 'good,' but they are refreshingly honest and show a complete lack of hypocrisy in how they deal with others. They are also loyal beyond death – the race as a whole to the hanar, but individuals to those they owe an honor bond with.

Their culture is not overrun with sick fetishistic cults, mind-controlled 'unity,' disgusting experiments on children, cheat-beating barbarity that praises mindless slavish devotion to an honor code made entirely of hypocrisy, or obsessive-compulsive fixations on dominating the entire galaxy. They are a quiet, self-reflective people who focus more on living the lives they have than expending much effort on things they cannot.

It is something of a shock to me that I find myself admiring an alien race, but I do. And perhaps that is good. Perhaps, in the biting rejoinders of our good asari, I am a bigoted terrorist… but I am not _blindly_ bigoted.

* * *

 **An Overview of the Drell**

* * *

 **Mindset**

The three main driving forces in drell society are _service_ _, balance_ _,_ and _reflection_ _._

Service is a constant throughout drell history, even prior to the hanar – a drell feels a need to serve another, in some capacity. Families are almost always dominated by either males serving a female or females serving a male (the gender matters less than one spouse is over several others). Drell businesses focus on mutual service contracts and lengthy, ironclad agreements. Most drell who leave Drell/Hanar Space are mercenaries in nature – be that military, or contractual agreements, or bids for hire. Only the most powerful and highest in drell society are free of this need.

Balance – balance of the life and soul, between work and leisure, between the gods and real life, between life and death – is another central component. The drell believe that being out of balance in anything will always bring discontent and distraction, and that evil and sin are all the results or symptoms of a lack of inner and outer balance. This does render drell morality and legal systems dreadfully tit-for-tat and an eye for an eye, but on the other hand, it seems to have produced staggeringly low instances of mental imbalance, depression, or suicide.

Finally, reflection on the perfect memories all drell have takes up much of their time. Drell often lose themselves in recalling such, and do so in an attempt to draw out new context or meaning from the same memories. Drell memory is terrifyingly precise, to the point a drell can glance at the pages of a book for less than a second a page and then recall the entire thing to read decades later. Drell focus on finding meaning in memory takes on some curious overtones that have led to the rise of arcane monastic orders like the Servants of Life and the Remembrance Dancers.

* * *

 **Culture**

Drell culture varies wildly between the drell serving the hanar, the barbarians murdering each other in piles on Rakhana, and the 'free' drell who make their way through Citadel Space. Curiously enough, each group has the same broad strokes – a love of song, dance, and eating, a focus on feats of skill and prowess, a dedication to achieving a stated goal, a fondness for practical jokes, and a complex religious system.

The details, however, are so different that at a glance they seem like completely different subcultures, despite the underlying basis for each. All drell cultures share a single feature, an emphasis on living the life you have and making the most of it – be that in entertainment, the pursuit of wealth, scientific study, or what have you. The idea of a lazy drell is nonexistent and most drell pack every minute of the day not spent in reflection with activity.

Drell music and art are rich and diverse, and drell music is both almost tribally bombastic while possessing surprisingly elegant undertones and depth. Drell cooking and food practices are renowned far and wide, and drell architects are in high demand in Asari Space.

* * *

 **Military**

The drell military is a curious force. Consisting of a handful of heavy-cruisers, over a hundred light-cruisers, and some three hundred frigates, destroyers, and combat assault ships, its primary purpose is light interdiction and policing of drell systems along the edge of Hanar Space. This force is backstopped by a slightly larger and much more dangerous group of drell ships utilizing limited hanar technology that is in direct service to the hanar.

The purely drell navy did not exist until the hanar decided they wanted the drell to integrate into Citadel society, and funded its construction so that the drell could make the required contribution to the Combined Citadel Fleets. One such ship was destroyed in the Benezia Incident at Feros, and thirty more were destroyed at the Battle of the Citadel at the end of the Benezia Incident.

I believe I made some mention of a drell army in my introductory section. I have studied this further, and I'm afraid that statement was in complete error.

There is _absolutely_ no drell 'army.' The drell find the entire concept of a standing force of semi-professional killers who don't get to kill very often a mix of hilarious and incomprehensible. Even on Rakhana, the 'warbands' are more like mercenary groups that hire out to the warlords than standing armies.

Overall, drell _mercenary forces_ make up the bulk of military power for the drell. (One might argue that there is little difference to standing mercenary forces serving the government from standing regular military forces doing so, but the drell think otherwise.) These are exquisitely trained, frightfully polite, and utterly amoral and discreet. Drell can (and have) killed other drell in service to aliens, although the hanar do not use them in such a manner.

* * *

 **Economy**

Given the infuriating lack of an actual hanar economy, it should come as little surprise that the drell don't give much thought to it either. The hard lessons of Rakhana in terms of pollution, resource depletion, corporate greed, and privation have led the drell serving the hanar to mimic their masters as much as possible.

All drell in direct service to the hanar are paid in volus index bonds, which the hanar purchase directly from the volus to use for such things. The hanar only buy index 'A' and 'AA' bonds, the most valuable and expensive, which are marked to galactic eezo, platinum, exotic goods, and objets d'art. As a result, most Concordance drell are comparatively wealthy. The drell government taxes all of these drell fairly heavily and distributes the remainder not used by the government into a volus-managed pension index fund, which in turn provides a basic living income for all drell.

Rakhana does not have an economy so much as a post-apocalyptic barter system.

Drell outside of the Concordance usually integrate into the economy of their masters, although they make extremely bad merchants and do not have any interest in pursuing such things unless forced to.

* * *

 **Intelligence**

Given that hanar are, shall we say, somewhat conspicuous and rarely leave their known locales, drell form the bulk of the intelligence services of both the Hanar Primacy and the Drell Concordance.

Drell are natural spies – perfect eidetic memory, outstanding reflexes and stealth, a known preference for mercenary work which takes them all over the galaxy, and the odd but useful ability to not really draw distaste from any race.

Most of the drell efforts are focused on locating Prothean ruins for the hanar, but they have also been dispatched for other reasons. More serious drell threats include Remembrance Dancers and some of the more obscure and combat-oriented cults of Amonkira, the Lord of Hunters, who act both as ritual vigilantes as well as bounty hunters.

The thrust of drell intelligence forces is almost totally military in nature – they either do not value or, more likely, are not utilized in pursuits such as technological research, economic data, financial trends, and the like. On the other hand, they are deeply involved in very… strange sorts of information gathering, such as searching oceanic worlds, reviewing archaeological digs of primitive species that died out before developing spaceflight, and other oddities. The reasons behind this are unknown, and speculation is ill-advised given how mysterious the hanar are.

* * *

 **Governance and the Hanar**

On paper, the Drell Concordance governs and controls the thirty-plus drell colonies that border Hanar Space. They have no relationships (or concerns) about Rakhana beyond regular drops of survival supplies, and do not care about outlander drell.

In practice, despite the hanar's repeated statements that they are free, the Concordance sees itself as a hanar client state at best and, on most days, as servants. The Concordance is a theocratic oligarchy, a top-heavy structure that has religious leaders and important mercenary owners defining the rules, and the rest of the government mostly deployed in strictly public service measures.

This is almost as maddening as the hanar, since the Concordance 'governs' about as much as a modern-day Earth nation – police, fire and disaster relief, public maintenance, medical maintenance, and controlling zoning and the like. There is no taxation aside from the taxes on earnings from the hanar, and the government does not regulate financial or economic matters at all.

The religious side of things is practically more important than the legalistic side – many of the laws and strictures are drawn directly from the drell 'Book of Days.'

* * *

 **Rakhana, Yismas, and Ghellen**

As is well-known, the drell race arose on a desert world known as Rakhana. They developed on roughly the same scale as humanity did in terms of technological advancement, although they had seven world-spanning Dark Ages and at least one near mass die-off.

Upon full industrialization, several devastating wars kicked off due to shrinking resources. The planet's ecosystem, never particularly strong, was further ruined by unceasing glaciation, heavy pollutants in the little remaining water, and no less than three violent nuclear exchanges. From a high in population of almost nine billion, less than seventy million drell survived.

The world was on the down spiral to a complete Malthusian collapse before the hanar intervened, 'uplifting' almost forty million drell to serve them. Those who refused this offer became known as the valkhana – 'those who refuse.' The world continued to suffer and centuries later, many valkhana accepted resettlement from the asari and salarians to Yismas.

Drell under the hanar were originally relocated to Kahje, but the humid nature of the world and aggressive spores killed tens of thousands and sickened more. The hanar scouted and terraformed (in a shockingly frightening short span of time) six desert worlds, which it settled the drell onto. The drell in the Concordance have expanded from this humble beginning to some thirty colonies, plus a good dozen resource or mining bases with more than one hundred thousand drell. Ghellen, the first world terraformed, is now their capital.

Those drell who accepted the offer of the Council settled on the dry hellworld of Yismas, which was useless to both asari and salarians. Drell have performed some minor terraforming on the world, but mostly it is an armed mercenary camp – a dark and forbidding planet from which independent drell sell their services to the highest bidder. These non-Concordance drell share the same language and religion as their servile cousins, but do not revere the hanar.

A few million barbaric holdouts still fight and survive on Rakhana itself, even as hanar nanotech cleans up pollutants and regulates temperature. At the current rates, Rakhana will be fully livable again in a century, although almost all useful resources have been exhausted. Rakhana drell language is a patois that is barely translatable, and their tech level intermixes industrial and modern weapons with ancient building and farming techniques. Compared to other drell, Rakhana drell are known for being surly and insular.

* * *

 **Technology**

It is hard to pin down where drell technology 'starts' and gifts from their masters 'end.' To be fair, drell do have some things they've invented themselves, particularly in the area of UV sensors and biotic invocations.

The primary drell building materials – a reddish metal and a greenish one – do not correspond to anything we have on the periodic table, and the substances in question are clearly highly advanced plasma-forged nano-constructs, probably produced by the hanar. Drell weapons and armor systems are also hanar in nature, although the drell refit such things for their own body shape.

Drell weapons and naval technology are at least fifteen years beyond current Citadel state-of-the-art, with their Concordance heavy warships recently sporting the hanar Prism Lance technology in limited numbers.

* * *

 **Threat**

A hard value to assign, sir.

In theory, they are a more severe threat than hanar, simply given their abilities. In practice, however, they rarely act without both direction from their masters and a signed mercenary contract.

Any assault on Hanar Space must penetrate Drell Space heavily, and invasion is likely to be extremely costly for any Citadel power. With no standing army, you would assume they would be easy picking, but _every_ civilian is trained in how to use, at the very least, personal defense weapons and kinetic shielding.

Hanar civil response units (AKA The Sympathy) distributes hanar SMGs, medical kits, bugout bags, kinetic shields, and omni-tech assets to drell civilians quarterly.

The outsider drell are harmless since they only act upon mercenary contracts, and the drell on Rakhana are savages killing each other at the clip of twenty to thirty thousand people a year.


End file.
